For this harvest-time trip, I created “video portraits” of a few coffee farms and farmers we source from. Get to know your coffee farmer better!
Ethiopia Senna Katta Mountain Coffee Farm
Senna farm is located in the middle of a protected forest, on of the more isolated Ethiopian coffee farms I have visited! The nearest landmark is Katta mountain in the Boter forest preserve, hence our combined name. We bought this as FYS, which stands for “Fraoul Yodit Solomon”. Yodit and Solomon are the owners, and Fraoul is their first born son. It’s a family thing!
The farm is 130 hectaresWe use this metric term often to discuss the size of coffee farms. 1 Hectare = 10000 Square Meters = 2.471 acres: We use this metric term often... and 115 is planted with coffee. The Boter forest surrounding it is 5000 hectares of natural preserved land as well as managed forestry / logging by a local cooperative group. They produce only natural dry processDry process coffee is a method for taking the fruit from the tree to an exportable green bean. The whole intact coffee cherry is dried in the sun... coffee, which we started offering for the first time this past harvest season
Dehab Mesfin Farm in Kafa
This beautiful farm in the Kafa district of EthiopiaEthiopia, formerly known as Abyssinia, or a coffee cultivar: Ethiopia, or more specifically the Empire under Haile Selassie, was known as Abyssinia. The name is Latin, derived from..., where some say arabicaArabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the taxonomic species name of the genus responsible for around 75% of the worlds commercial coffee crop.: Arabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the... coffee originated, is part coffee farm and part nature preserve. I talk about the land grants made in the 2000s by the government to create opportunities as well as preserve forest … and if all the farms are like this one, it seems to have worked out okay.
Dehab has forest areas on the farm as well as organicGrown without the use of artificial fertilizers, herbicides, etc.: Organic coffee has been grown according to organic farming techniques, typically without the use of artificial fertilizers. Some farms... honeyIn coffee, honey-like sweetness is often found, but we use terms such as refined honey (highly filtered and processed) as opposed to raw honey rustic honey sweetness. This... production, which I look at (cautiously!) in the second clip in the video. She is very interested in finding a balanceSuggests a harmony and proportion of qualities, and implies mildness since no one quality dominates.: Balance is both an obvious and slippery taste term. It implies a harmony... to have sustainable coffee production and preserve the land. We have this dry-process coffee in 2022-3 crop and will offer it next year as well.
Dabessa Farm in Wolenso, Limmu, Ethiopia
A ride and a stroll around this beautiful coffee farm in the Wolenso area of Limmu Kossa, Ethiopia. We offered this dry-process coffee as YDC, which is short for Yidnekachew Dabessa Chalchissa, but Mesfin is changing it to DH Family Coffee. Either way, it’s nice to see this lovely high-elevation farm, with maintained primary shade trees and tracts of untouched forest.
The later part of this is about crafting natural bee hives from logs. It is the first time I have seen the Ethiopian bee hives being made. Again with the bees! Maybe it’s because I am an ex-beekeeper (amateur) but also, I love Ethiopian Honey! (It’s very good)
Ethiopia Coffee Farm Visits – Shakiso Guji Sidama (Dec ’22)
It is a good harvest this year in the south, but all over Ethiopia there is intense competition for the coffee cherryOriginally coffee literature referred to the fruit of the tree as a "berry" but in time it became a cherry. It is of course neither. Nor is the.... Cooperatives and private washing stations are driving up prices, as well as small operators who were given easy loans by the banks to buy coffee cherry
Either a flavor in the coffee, or referring to the fruit of the coffee tree, which somewhat resembles a red cherry.: Either a flavor in the coffee, or.... Along with huge exporters that have seemingly endless financing, this has combined for a financially dangerous proposition: high prices for the raw material in a global recession, with a falling global price for coffee overall.
Ethiopia has some very special coffee, but how much of it will sell to quality minded buyers like us, who pay large premiums? What about the rest of the coffee? In any case, it’s a good year to be a small farmer with a larger harvest of coffee. There is indeed real trickle down in that regard. It’s speculators who might suffer most. And perhaps they should ?! My video doesn’t go into all that (but the podcasts from Ethiopia do!)
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One Response
Thanks for all you do!!
I loved watching all the Ethiopia videos and listening to the podcasts…
…the coffee is delicious-the quality is #1!! Sweet Maria’s for the win!! thank you!!