Although buying coffee from Ethiopia is a bit of a hassle these days because of their new trading system, we feel that not buying anything at all is not helping the farmers either. Therefore, we have decided to buy a small quantity of a great washed coffee from Trabocca, which we know are doing a lot of good work in Ethiopia in order to raise the quality of the coffee and also the price for the farmers in Ethiopia.

The Hunkute co-op is part of the “Operation Cherry Red” (OCR) project developed by Trabocca, which is an exporter of coffee which specialises on Ethiopia as an origin. The project involves several co-operatives in Ethiopia which have been asked to make micro lots of coffee based strictly on fully ripe coffee cherries from the many smallholder farmers who deliver their coffees to these co-operatives. The coffees are cupped after processing and the ones that score 89+ points out of 100 are sold as “OCR” coffees. The coffee is priced a bit higher than the market price, but Trabocca has invested a lot of the profits into new drying beds and processing equipment at the co-operatives that deliver these coffees. This is to ensure more volume and higher quality in the future.

Info:

Cooperative: Hunkute coop.
Lot size: 1800 kg
Producer: Several smallholders
Harvest: December 2009
Origin: Dalle, Sidamo, Ethiopia
Growing conditions: About 1800-1950 msl. natural shade trees.
Botanical variety: Local Heirloom varietals
Process: The coffee is hand picked by the farmers and their families. The cherries are depulped, the beans are fermented and washed before they get dried on african elevated drying tables.

Taste description:
Smell of jasmine and bergamot. Refreshing citric acidity. Taste of jasmine, dried apricots and lemon. Short sweet finish.

Here is a set of pictures from our trip to Ethiopia in 2009: