Chelbesa
We have been purchasing Ethiopian coffees through Moplaco for seven years now, and have grown to trust their buying practices and the quality that they are able to offer, both in coffees they produce themselves, and those they purchase from neighbouring mills. This lot is an example of the former. Moplaco’s Yirgacheffe mill is located just outside the iconic town of the same name, and collects cherry from several surrounding villages. The cherries that comprise this lot have been collected from the village of Chelbesa.
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The long spine that produces ‘Yirgacheffe’ coffees runs from North to South through the Gedeo zone, through the well known towns of Yirgacheffe, Kochere and Gedeb. The Gedeo zone is mainly inhabited by the Gedeo people, who have been farming here since before any records began. Most work on tiny plots of less than 2 hectares, with coffee interspersed among food crops and native forest. It is this biodiversity and relative lack of chemical intervention that is thought to lead to the incredibly high quality of coffees from Ethiopia, and especially the Gedeo zone.
The potential of these cherries is then unlocked by Moplaco’s team at the Yirgacheffe station. This was the first Moplaco mill to start processing natural coffees in the region, more than 20 years ago. The first natural coffee to win the ‘Taste of Harvest’ was also produced here, cementing Moplaco’s intent to innovate and progress. The natural coffees from Moplaco’s mills have been some of the most elegant we have tasted in recent years.
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The clear Yirgacheffe aromatic signature of white florals and citrus is maintained, while softening the fruit in the cup towards stewed stone fruit, and enhancing a deep brown sugar sweetness.
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In Ethiopia, coffee still grows semi-wild, and in some cases completely wild. Apart from some regions of neighbouring South Sudan, Ethiopia is the only country in which coffee is found growing in this way, due to its status as the genetic birthplace of arabica coffee. This means in many regions, small producers still harvest cherries from wild coffee trees growing in high altitude humid forests, especially around Ethiopia’s famous Great Rift Valley.
Forest coffee makes up a great deal of Ethiopia’s yearly output, so this is a hugely important method of production, and part of what makes Ethiopian coffee so unique. Deforestation is threatening many of coffee’s iconic homes in Ethiopia, leading to dwindling yields and loss of biodiversity; significant price fluctuations over the past decade have led many farmers to replace coffee with fast growing eucalyptus, an incredibly demanding crop in terms of both water and nutrient usage.
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Throughout these endemic systems, a much higher level of biodiversity is maintained than in modern coffee production in much of the rest of the world. This is partly due to the forest system, and partly down to the genetic diversity of the coffee plants themselves. There are thousands of ‘heirloom’ varieties growing in Ethiopia; all descended from wild cross pollination between species derived from the original Arabica trees. This biodiversity leads to hardier coffee plants, which don’t need to be artificially fertilised. This means that 95% of coffee production in Ethiopia is organic, although most small farmers and mills can’t afford to pay for certification, so can’t label their coffee as such.
The absence of monoculture in the Ethiopian coffee lands also means plants are much less susceptible to the decimating effects of diseases such as leaf rust that have ripped through other producing countries. Maintaining these systems is important, both within the context of the coffee industry, and for wider biodiversity and sustainability. Our primary partners in Ethiopia, Moplaco, have made it their mission to inform of this destruction, and to continue supporting the communities they work with in order to make coffee a profitable and attractive business for smallholder farmers.
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