Ethiopia - Yirgacheffe Idido

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.

Originland Coffee was founded in 2022 by established entrepreneur Mikiyas Alemu and seasoned specialty coffee professional Abenezer Asfaw to empower smallholder farmers and preserve nature, both of which necessarily comprise the backbone of a coffee business that looks to thrive for the long term.

To do this, they constructed washing stations, i.e. post-harvest processing facilities, in different coffee-growing zones — three of which are regions recognized at the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence, consecutively in 2021 and 2022 — that would allow the farming communities in the vicinity improve the quality of their coffees to specialty coffee standards.

Apart from granting these communities a venue for the implementation of the most relevant post-harvest processing methods, Originland also engages in active knowledge-sharing about simultaneously sustainable and productive cultivation and farm maintenance practices and augments their reach across more lucrative and discerning consuming communities who are able to recognize, appreciate, and gladly provide the appropriate compensation for the distinctive flavor profiles that are a mark of good quality.

Idido Village is a coffee farming community in the Yirgacheffe district, which is among Ethiopia’s first coffee-growing zones to gain global renown for unparalleled quality and unprecedented cup profiles. At elevations between 1,950 and 2,300 masl, the village 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.

Kurume is one of the varieties native to the Gedeo zone, alongside Dega and Wolisho, that reportedly originated from the Yirgacheffe. Kurume trees are typically characterized as being compact, having small leaves and also small berries. Whereas Wolisho would have larger leaves and berries, and Dega’s in between.

Being indigenous to the Yirgacheffe terroir, Kurume have been observed express the complex fruit and floral nuances of Ethiopian coffees are renowned for to a higher degree when compared to varieties introduced from other areas. Collectively, coffee varieties that have naturally occurred and proliferated in Ethiopia are referred to as “regional landraces.”

Cultivated by the 438 Idido Village farmers in modest parcels of land near their homestead without the use of non-natural inputs, Kurume and such other heirlooms that grow in close proximity are considered to be “garden coffees” that are organic by default.

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, 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 carefully hand-picked, properly ripe cherries are then delivered to the wet mill of Memiru Demise, a seasoned coffee producer who built his experience over 12 years of running his family’s 26-hectare plantation and processing facility on the Idido mountain. At the wet mill, the cherries 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 activities 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 resulted in a sweet, crisp, rich and balanced cup character elevated by a floral flourish.