Ethiopian Coffee Overview

Ethiopian coffee reminds us that “coffee is a crop.”

Coffee varies because coffee is agriculture. As a culture of coffee consumption, we might not think coffee as a farmed crop. It might seem like any other product that appears on a shelf of the store… 

When you find a really great coffee like the dry-processed types from the South, it is like eating Michigan peaches at the height of the season – sweet, juicy, fruityIn some coffee taster’s lexicon, “fruity” means the coffee is tainted with fruit, and “fruited” means a coffee is graced by positive fruit notes. We don’t exactly see…, and ripe with flavor. But then those peaches are gone, and you hope that the next season will produce the same results.  Similarly, the cup profile of these coffees can be equally amazing, but when they’re gone, they’re gone. If all the factors line up just right, it might be the same next year. But then again, maybe not. 

The fact that coffee attributes can be fleeting from year-to-year makes sourcing a challenge. We often have to look in new places for those prized characteristics. Sometimes other factors of the trade have the same effect. For example, we believe that a lot of coffee previously sold as “Yirgacheffe” was coming into the area from adjacent regions, due to the fact the buyers were all seeking Yirga Cheffe. 

Now this dynamic has changed, and we are finding great coffees from all those other regions, but Yirga cheffe itself can seem inconsistent in quality. At the same time, break-out regions of Sidama, formerly sold in bulk blends, are now distinguishing themselves, such as Bensa, Chire and Nensebo. 

Our focus on green coffee from Ethiopia.

We spend a lot of energy each harvest year looking for Ethiopian coffees to import. The reason is that Ethiopia is worth it to u: It’s our top coffee origin at Sweet Maria’s, and the range of taste attributes and potential for amazing cup quality demands our primary focus. That doesn’t mean all Ethiopian coffee is good, and sortingCoffee is sorted by size, density, and color in its preparation for export.: Sorting refers to several steps performed in the preparation of coffee for export. Coffee is… through the abundant offerings is a huge job each harvest season. As evidenced by the numerous travelogs, cuppingCupping is a method of tasting coffee by steeping grounds in separate cups for discrete amounts of ground coffee, to reveal good flavors and defects to their fullest…. updates and videos, we travel every harvest to Ethiopia, usually at least a couple trips in fact. While our first trip will be filled with farm visits and a crop survey from regions we like, the second trek will have more focus on tasting, honing in on the coffees we will offer, and making arrangements with exporters.

The challenges in Ethiopia can be huge. It’s a lot of work to produce nice coffee, to harvest it well, process is right in the wet millThe wet mill is a processing center where coffee cherry from the tree is brought for initial processing.: The wet mill goes by many names (Beneficio, Factory, Washing…, dry it correctly, and have it milled to the right standard. But getting it through the regulatory and export system, the Letter of Credit and other regulations (which seem to change far too often) is daunting. We don’t do that ourselves, but find reliable partners who know how the system works.

Even then, a shift in policy, issues with transportation from the mill to Djibouti port for export, or any other number of things can go wrong. It is rarely a journey without a setback of some kind. But no matter the risks, our experience is that Ethiopia is worth the highest level of effort, because when everything lines up just right, the coffee can be that good!