Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Chelbessa-Natural

Coffees in Ethiopia are typically grown on very small plots of land by farmers who also grow other crops. The majority of smallholders will deliver their coffee in cherry to a nearby washing station or central processing unit, where their coffee will be sorted, weighed, and paid for or given a receipt. Coffee is then processed, usually washed or natural, by the washing station and dried on raised beds.

This coffee comes from the Chelbessa Washing Station in Yirgacheffe. Chelbessa is one of the largest “Kebeles” or towns in Gedeb. This washing station receives coffee from nearly 500 farmers in the region. 

The washing stations serve as many as several hundred to sometimes a thousand or more producers, who deliver cherry throughout the harvest season: The blending of these cherries into day lots makes it virtually impossible under normal circumstances to know precisely whose coffee winds up in which bags on what day, making traceability to the producer difficult. We do, however, make every available effort to source coffee from the same washing stations every year, through our export partners and their connections with mills and washing stations.

Typically farmers in this region don't have access to and therefore do not utilize fertilizers or pesticides in the production of coffee. 

Yirgacheffe is in Southern Ethiopia, south of the capital city of Addis Ababa and completely within the larger area of Sidamo. Despite its small size, Yirgacheffe is highly prized for the quality of the coffee produced there. There are over 43,000 coffee producers in Yirgacheffe who cultivate around 62,000 hectares of land, much of which is over 2,000 meter above sea level.