New Coffee Release: Ethiopia Kossa Geshe

 

Country - Ethiopia
Region - Jimma Zone
Altitude – 1800 masl
Varietal – 74110, 74140, 74112, 74165
Process – Natural
 

FLAVOR NOTES

DECADENT BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE AND MILK CHOCOLATE SWEETNESS HIGHLIGHT THIS RICH AND SYRUPY CUP. SPARKLING APPLE JUICE ACIDITY LEAD TO A SMOOTH AND LINGERING FINISH AKIN TO FIG AND ALMOND BUTTER.

 

Ethiopia is a coffee powerhouse. It is the birthplace of the plant and comes in as the seventh-largest producing country in the world. Because coffee is such a vital part of the economy in Ethiopia, the government has a hand in it, making for an interesting coffee context.

 

Ethiopia is proudly a nation that has never been colonized, despite a five-year occupation by Italy. The longtime government has been from a tribal minority (the Tigray). In 2018, a coup installed an Oromo president – the largest tribe in Ethiopia. Its namesake region, Oromia, sprawls south and west from the capital city Addis Ababa, and covers most of the coffee territory in Ethiopia.

 

Of the over 100 million people in Ethiopia, almost 15 million rely on coffee for income. Coffee accounts for 60% of foreign income and is about 40% of the country’s total exports. For the scope (Africa’s largest producing country) and the importance of the industry, there is a surprising amount of consolidation.

 

Things are constantly changing in Ethiopia but buying happens in three ways: from an Exporter who buys off the ECX, from a Coop Union which markets the coffees collected from member coops, or directly from a single producer or estate (if they have a farm over 2 hectares).

 

The producing regions and zones of Ethiopia are nearly as famous for specific coffee flavors as the country itself. More coffee drinkers may know Yirgacheffe and Sidama as the coffee-growing country of Burundi. One famous zone is Jimma, which sits southwest of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Like much of coffee-growing Ethiopia, Jimma is a broad, sloping plateau of indescribable fertility and drastically high elevations

 

The best coffees of Jimma, especially in the Gera and Gomma districts, are known for being snappy with sweet and delicate fruit flavors. The area’s “white” honey, foraged by bees from coffee and forest blossoms, is another famous Jimma product.

 

Coffees from this zone, along with those from neighboring Illu Babor, are commonly referred to as “Limu,” which is not a geographical indicator itself but more of a terroir distinction encapsulating common cup profiles from this part of the country.