Ethiopian Coffee Beans

For hundreds of years, Ethiopia has provided some of the world's best reviewed single origin premium coffee beans. In general, Ethiopian coffees are best known for their complexity with a pungent, winey quality and a distinct wildness in their acidity.

• Altitude Range: 1,500 – 2,200 meters above sea level
• Language Spoken: Amharic
• Harvest:  November – February
• Annual Coffee Production: 6,600,000 bags (2013)
• Common Varieties: Arabica, native heirloom varieties
• Avg Farm Size: In general, small plantations

Taste

The eastern region of Ethiopia, best known for its dry processed (unwashed; natural) coffees, produces the Harrars with their fruity or winey tones, complex blueberry notes, bright (sometimes brilliant) acidity, and with a medium to heavy body that has a dry edge to it. Harrar coffees are a distinctive wild-varietal specific to the region, and are hand processed by locals.

The western region of Ethiopia produces the Ghimbi coffee beans distinguished by their rich, sharp acidity and complexity of flavors and aromas.

A more specific categorization divides Ethiopia into nine distinct growing regions: Yirgacheffes, Sidamo, Harrar, Bebeka, Teppi, Limu, Djimma, Illubabor, Lekempti, Wellega and Gimbi. There's no Best Ethiopian Coffee, with preferences varying depending on personal tastes.

Best Coffee Beans

There are three top coffee-producing regions in Ethiopia,with each coffee-growing region producing a truly distinct coffee.

• Ethiopian Yirgacheffe
• Ethiopian Sidamo
• Ethiopian Harrar

The southern Gedeo zone of Ethiopia, known for its wet processed (washed) coffees, produces the spicy, fragrant Yirgacheffes with their delicate body, sweet flavor and floral aroma including shimmering notes of citrus.

These coffee beans are consistently some of the highest rated in the world, and while often pricey, are much more affordable than most Konas or Jamaican Blue Mountain.

Natural growing methods (including pest control) made Organic Certification an easy sell to farmers, and Fair Trade Organic certified coffees are abundant.

While Yirgacheffe is technically a part of Sidama, their higher quality and name-recognition allows them to be separated out.

Ethiopian Brands

Ethiopian coffee is typically sold by region - Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, Harrar, etc - as a single origin, though the lowest priced ones can be incorporated into blends. The Starbucks Reserve program has featured a number of Ethiopian coffees in the past.

Generally, consumers want to buy from a supplier who can fresh roast the coffee, and order whole bean. Coffees that are roasted or pre-ground and sit on store shelves or in distribution centers (eg. Amazon, grocery stores) lose their flavor within a few weeks, and the entire distribution chain means that it can be weeks or months before the coffees even end up on those shelves.

Other Regions

The entire region around Ethiopia produces coffee, including neighboring countries of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and just across the red sea - Yemen. Each region has a distinct flavour profile and traditional processing methods that date back hundreds of years.

Culture

In Ethiopia, coffee is an important part of the culture, and a respected daily event is the Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony. Most historians agree that coffee originated in Ethiopia, though there is some debate over the issue.

Ethiopia is where the frequently told story originates, of a goat breeder who noticed strange behaviour in his flock of goats after they ate berries from a certain tree.

Taking the berries to a monastery, monks brewed him a tea from it and coffee was developed and refined from the resulting brew, spreading across the region and eventually the world.

Ethiopian Coffee Exchange

The Ethiopian Coffee Exchange (ECX) was set up in 2008 to smooth out pricing and help protect the farmers from volatility in the market, which could affect their livelihood.

It turns coffee production into a more stable commodity, providing warehousing, trading, trading and payment to allow for more consistency, but as a draw-back, doesn't allow for premiums for better crops (all crops are averaged together for consistency).

• Farmers deliver their cherries to a local wet mills
• Wet mills deliver unroasted green coffee (parchment coffee) to warehouses, and graded by region plus physical qualities (defects, size) and cupping quality
• Warehouses sell and deliver coffee to exporters and brokers within Ethiopia, who arrange delivery to wholesalers in other countries

Green coffee importers work with the distributors and co-ops in Ethiopia to import coffees into the United States and Canada. From there, it gets broken into smaller lots and sold in bulk quantities to roasters who sell to the public and retail and grocery stores.

The high elevation of Ethiopia (1,500+ meters) qualify all Ethiopian green coffees as Strictly High Grown (SHG) / Strictly Hard Bean (SHB). Coffees that are SHG grow slower because of the altitude, resulting in more nutrients being delivered to the coffee beans and making them denser and more flavorful.