Ethiopia - Guji Uraga Haro Wolabu

Ethiopia and its coffee farming families stand to benefit more abundantly from the country's inherent advantages as the primordial origin of coffee —invariably blessed terroir; instinctual, indigenous know-how; and unmatched genetic diversity — once they overcome the various challenges faced by the coffee sector in terms of productivity and premium market access.

Oboleyan Coffee Export PLC, with Tariku Edema at the helm as General Manager, was founded with his four brothers after the government relaxed regulations in 2018 and allowed private entities to increase their participation in the coffee industry. The Edema brothers were, and continue to be, driven by the calling to play a significant part in alleviating the living conditions of as many coffee farming families as their enterprise can reach.

They established coffee processing centers, better known in Ethiopia as "washing stations," in the Guji Zone of Oromia — one of the only three coffee-growing regions recognized by the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence, consecutively in 2021 and 2022 — to afford out-growers in the proximate districts a venue for processing their coffee cherries toward the level of quality acknowledged and rewarded within the specialty coffee world.

This did not only open up opportunities for increasing the value of and material returns for the farming families' crops but also for augmenting their knowledge base, leading to better cultivation and harvesting practices that would lead to sustainably increased productivity alongside consistent quality.

Haro Wolabu is a coffee farming community in the Uraga district and a close neighbor to Hambela. At elevations between 2,100 and 2,300 masl, the locale rests on fertile soils and receives an ideal amount of rainfall, which are among the beneficial factors contributing to the sought-after attributes of their coffee.

“Mixed heirloom” is the general term commonly used to identify coffee originating from Ethiopia, encompassing regional landraces and Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC) varieties.

JARC varieties are promoted and bred because of their good quality when grown at the recommended elevations, resistance to or tolerance of adverse elements, and adaptability to diverse environments. There are 40+ JARC varieties comprising mainly pure line selections and a handful of hybrids. They are known to express floral and fruity qualities, and a complex character even when processed using traditional methods.

Following traditional practices, Haro Wolabu Village farmers cultivate several varieties in small plots of land without artificial inputs, making the coffees organic by default. Many of them depend on the natural proliferation of the coffee plants, which grow into trees close to each other, which in some cases can inhibit the identification of the individual coffee varieties at the time of harvest.

At harvest season, the head of household designates the trees which are ripe for picking — the ones with deep red cherries — and it is conventionally women who are recognized to have the acumen for it who lead in this task. Throughout, they take care not to strip the trees of leaves or harm any of the branches. The cherries are then brought to Oboleyan Coffee’s washing station, where they are pre-cleaned and sorted before being laid out on the raised beds to dry.

The critical challenge of natural processing lies in enabling only the desired flavors to develop in order for a high level of quality to be achieved. To do this, it is necessary for the lots to include only healthy, ripe cherries. Further, the cherries must dry evenly until the target moisture level is reached in a process that takes between 10 to 12 days.

Facilitating both requires the keen attention and careful manual labor of the farmers who select and sort the cherries, and the washing station workers who monitor the moisture levels and carry out tasks like turning the cherries over at regular intervals and covering them with the appropriate material in case of unfavorable weather conditions.

In this lot, the natural process revealed more of a caramel character rounded out by subtle fruit overtones.