The Roaster's Favorite!

We have been roasting for 10 years and this past week we roasted a coffee from Ethiopia that just exploded with color, taste and fused with chocolate. It is grown in the Jimma region of Ethiopia. Typically farms in this area sold only dry-processed coffee which was pooled into commercial lots of Jimma Grade 5 . There wasn't good money in this, certainly not enough to improve farms (or life quality either). This is a wet-process coffee, part of a new initiative in Ethiopia to work direct at the coop level. The program coordinates agronomists and managers for each of the coops they work with, but also has a business adviser assigned that helps the cooperative manage their debt, re-invest in quality improvements at the mill, and verifies distribution of income to all members. A cooperative can make all kinds of quality improvements, turn out fantastic coffee, and sink deeper in debt all the while. Cooperatives often fail to return a fair and full amount of payment to their farmer-members. Often this is from poor management, and sometimes from graft as well. With this lot we can verify that the great price we paid will result in a fair distribution of funds, a better managed coop, investment in the mill, and even better coffee next year, we anticipate.