Ethiopia - Chelbessa

The three siblings who oversee the coffee processing station, help wash and process coffee in what is truly a Garden of Eden — at least for coffee. Their heirloom varieties date back centuries if not millennia, grown in air scented with eucalyptus. The name of the nearest town, Worka, translates to ‘golden’ in the Gedeo dialect, and the coffee we buy from washing station is a crown jewel for us.

From all the surrounding mountains, more than a thousand coffee farmers bring their coffee cherry down to the station on mule or by foot. There, the Roba brothers carefully oversee the cherry processing. The result is an exiting profile:

Fresh apple blossom and cooked strawberry flavors with balanced acidity and sweetness.

Chelbessa’s washing station is developing relationships with farms from higher elevations and utilizing lot separation to increase quality. The heirloom coffee cherry varieties native to this area display a unique and exquisite flavor profile. The majority of farmers and their families cultivate as little as half a hectare of land with an average of 90 coffee trees. Farmers consider coffee a main crop which pays for taxes, school fees, clothes and food items. Crops are managed and harvested by the family members. During the harvest, they transport pristine coffee cherry down the mountain to the washing station either by mule or on foot.