Ethiopia Guji- Light Roast Heirloom Varieties, Whole Beans

This description was taken from the website of our suppliers, Cafe Imports.

This coffee comes from the Gogogu washing station in the Kofee district of Guji, Ethiopia. This washing station produces both washed and natural coffees in the traditional Ethiopian way of processing ripe cherries. Over 700 farmers deliver cherry here from roughly 5km in each direction from the mill. Average farm size is roughly 2 hectares and coffee is the main source of income in this region. Average rainfall here is 1600-200mm and they typically are picking coffee from mid-December through the end of February.

Coffees in Ethiopia are typically grown on very small plots of land by farmers who also grow other crops. The majority of smallholders will deliver their coffee in cherry to a nearby washing station or central processing unit, where their coffee will be sorted, weighed, and paid for or given a receipt. Coffee is then processed, usually washed or natural, by the washing station and dried on raised beds.

The washing stations serve as many as several hundred to sometimes a thousand or more producers, who deliver cherry throughout the harvest season: The blending of these cherries into day lots makes it virtually impossible under normal circumstances to know precisely whose coffee winds up in which bags on what day, making traceability to the producer difficult. We do, however, make every available effort to source coffee from the same washing stations every year, through our export partners and their connections with mills and washing stations.

Typically farmers in this region don't have access to and therefore do not utilize fertilizers or pesticides in the production of coffee.

Source: Cafe Imports