ROAST LEVEL: LIGHT

TASTING NOTES: BERRY-FLORAL-LEMON-BRIGHT

GROWER: Smallholder farmers organized around the Banko Chelchele processing station

REGION: Banko Chelchele community, Gedeb District, Gedeo Zone, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region, Ethiopia

PROCESS: Full Natural - Sundried on raised beds 

VARIETY: Local arabica landraces and heirloom cultivars

ALTITUDE: 1950 - 2200 Meters

SOIL: Vertisol

High in elevation for even Ethiopia’s standards, this is a natural processed coffee from a single independent processing site in the famous Gedeb district of Yirgacheffe managed by Azeb Tadesse. The district of Gedeb takes up the south-eastern corner of Ethiopia’s Gedeo Zone—a narrow section of plateau dense with savvy farmers whose coffee is known as “Yirgacheffe”, after the zone’s most famous district. Gedeb.

Azeb Tadesse’s processing site is 2 hectares in size and employs up to 200 individuals to assist processing operations during harvest. Cherry is delivered throughout the day during harvest, where it is inspected and sorted for acceptability based on ripeness and uniformity. Once received, cherries are moved directly to the drying tables where they spread in a single layer to dry in the sun. The full drying process normally takes 3-6 weeks depending on the local climate at the time, and the final resting moisture content of the fruit is 11.5%. Once cherries have been thoroughly dried and rested, the dried fruit is hulled from the coffee seed locally, and then transferred to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.