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. 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.
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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.
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This washed process lot showcases the potential of coffees from this iconic region, with the classic floral and citrus aromas backed up by fresh peaches in the cup.
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Moplaco
Moplaco was founded in 1972, by Yannis Georgalis. They established themselves in the town of Dire Dawa, to the north east of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Crucially, Dire Dawa is located on the edge of the iconic Ethiopian region of Harrar, and is home to the region’s largest ECX coffee delivery centre. Harrar produces a markedly different expression of Ethiopian coffee when compared to the regions further south surrounding the Great Rift Valley.
Yannis’ daughter Heleanna took over Moplaco 12 years ago, leading the company’s expansion into the south, and focussing on speciality coffee. The company invested in their facility in Addis Ababa, actually downsizing from their commercial days, allowing them to mill coffees from all over Ethiopia while maintaining traceability. The previous second warehouse has been converted into a shared creative space, where artisans work with textiles, ceramics and more, alongside a small coffee shop. The Georgalis family take their responsibility to the community seriously, giving back to the area of Addis they have called home for so long.
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Moplaco own processing stations in some of the most well known regions of Ethiopia; Yirgacheffe, Guji, Sidamo, where processing is carried out and agronomic advice is given to the smallholder farmers who deliver cherry. In recent years, Moplaco purchased the Logita processing station near the town of Bensa, in the North-East of the famous Sidamo region, and took over a farm in the far west of the country, near Sheka. Moplaco also work with neighbouring mills, assisting them with finance and quality work in order to secure a consistent supply of excellent coffee.
We are proud to be involved with Heleanna’s work, an inspirational woman blazing a trail for a new level of speciality coffee in Ethiopia.
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