Ethiopia
Single Origin | Filter

White Chrysanthemum. Peach. Quince. Lemon Tea

This exceptional natural coffee was dry milled and exported by Primrose PLC and Mr Birhanu Geda, a family crop grown by by smallholder farmers living around the kabele (town) in Banko Gutity, Yirgacheffe region. Coffee is a family crop – grown by households within small gardens, on less than one hectare of land. Producers line their homes with coffee trees, and it is the primary source of income. It is common for producers to intercrop, the Ethiopian banana, avocados, and papaya to have additional food sources. 

After the coffee is carefully hand-picked by each producer – they are carried to the washing station. This is sometimes an 8km journey that is done on foot, with a donkey, or with a motorbike. Upon arrival, the cherries are immediately sorted to remove under and overripe cherries. Next, the cherries are placed in channels of water to begin the washing process. The channel of water pushes the coffee to the de-pulper, which removes the exterior fruit of the cherry. Once washed, the coffee is then submerged in a concrete tank of water to ferment for 48 – 72 hours. The coffee is then rushed through another channel of water to remove any remaining mucilage or foreign material. Lastly, the coffee is evenly dispersed on raised beds to dry in the open sun and covered mid-day to prevent cracking. Once dried, the beans are trucked to the dry mill, located near the capital city, Addis Ababa. At the dry mill, a pre-cleaning machine removes foreign matter, metal, and stones. The polisher removes the parchment, and silver skin. After polishing, the coffee is graded based on screen size and placed in a gravity separator to remove lightweight and broken coffee beans. Colour sorters provide another layer of quality control, by removing defected beans. A final look by hand is done to ensure nothing was missed.

Our exporter and the mill in Banko Gutity paid more than the market price for a kilogram of red cherry, and those farmers that bring quality red cherry are paid a cash incentive, ensuring higher-than-average overall quality. This season, we have the coffee available as both a fully washed and natural process coffee. Less than 500kg of this fully washed coffee to savour, enjoy them while you can!