INTRODUCTION

Before Covid, we would invite buyers to Brooklyn every winter to taste through offer samples from Ethiopia. We’d present 30 or 40 coffees across tables at the Wythe Hotel or some other venue, hoping we planned enough water and coffee and time to get through them all and provide a meaningful glimpse at the coming year’s imports.

Our aim for these cupping events was to build community around the coffees and thus help build volume toward our import. Inevitably, though, as well thought-out and planned as they were, cupping in that context—with that many coffees, and with that many buyers present, and a limited amount of time—is challenging. And with limited sample material of each coffee available, even if you were interested in contracting a coffee and wanted to re-cup it in your own lab, there wouldn’t be enough PSS to go around.

During our most recent visit to Ethiopia, in the midst of harvest in December, we reflected on the lessons we’d learned from previous imports and some of the lingering problems we hoped to solve—and dreamed of a better way to present our partners’ coffees. So we put together a tasting kit—a complete picture of the coffees from Ethiopia we’ve already approved, sent to milling in Addis, and booked for shipping—our way to do that.

There may still be tasting kits available—reach out to your trader for more information.

Ethiopia’s 2022-2023 harvest was one defined by economic pressures: inflation, a shortage of foreign currency, and cherry prices that exceeded last year’s already high prices by more than 200%. A paradox of coffee production is that higher prices tend to lead to lower qualities, the effects of which have been observed by some buyers who have noted that quality from Ethiopia has apparently not lived up to expectations over the last few years.

It’s our ambition and our belief that the coffees on our offer sheet will change your mind—and that you’ll think about coffees from Ethiopia differently as we head into the 2023 import. We hope you enjoy tasting through these samples. If you like any of them, you can book them immediately—first come, first served—by reaching out to your trader (note that for many, only extremely limited quantities are available).

These coffees are already on their way—we expect to receive the first landed lots by the end of May.

Tag us on Instagram (@croptocup) during your cupping or drop us a line afterward to let us know what you thought of this tasting experience.

If you’d like to book any of these coffees, reach out to your trader at Crop to Cup. Many of these coffees are available in very limited quantities and will be contracted first come, first served.

If you’d like to book any of these coffees, reach out to your trader at Crop to Cup

Rashad Ababulgu, Mustefa Abasadi and Abo Hussein
On our way back to Jimma from visiting producers in Gera, Moata’s phones were ringing constantly. A few of those calls came in from Rashad Ababulgu and Mustefa Abasadi, two coffee farmers located near to the Biftu Gudina Cooperative who had, for years, been selling cherry to Duromina. It was starting to get dark and we had a way left to go, so instead of taking a detour, we arranged to meet them on the side of the road a few kilometers from their farms. Both had received drying materials and support through USAID, gotten export licenses and in the last year had sold coffee for export destined for Korea—and had friends in their community, other smallholders like Abo Hussein, who were similarly positioned to begin direct export. As the direct export market continues to develop in Ethiopia, we’re eager to seek out and deepen relationships with all-star producers who, for years, have contributed coffee to some of the cooperatives best known for quality. With their own export licenses, they’re able to capture higher prices and market their coffee and brand year-over-year to returning buyers like Crop to Cup.

Musa Abalulesa and Mustefa Abalulesa
Musa Abulelessa and his brother Mustefa operate two farms together outside of Beshasha in Agaro, called Koye and Chanko. Before the undergrowth was cleared for coffee, Musa and Mustefa’s jungle parcel at 2,100 meters elevation was a hideout for their father, Abalulesa, a guerilla fighting the oppressive military government of the time called The Derg. Failing to capture him and having lost soldiers in their attempts, the government offered the local community a bounty for Abalulesa’s capture. With his health deteriorating and near death, Abalulessa turned to an old friend and, as thanks for nursing him through his final months, told him to tell the government he had killed him, thus benefiting from the bounty. Abalulessa died in 1977—when Musa was just two years old—and as part of a subsequent amnesty and reconciliation program, the government gave land to the brothers and their mother, which Abalulesa’s sons now farm.

Crop to Cup was Musa’s first direct sale customer in 2016—and Mustefa’s the following year. With the premiums they’ve earned, Musa and Mustefa have begun to renovate their farms using seedlings from their nursery; built new drying beds; purchased shade cloth; and built a larger warehouse. Mustefa has built a dry mill in Agaro aimed at providing feedback to smallholders to help them understand the potential value of their coffee and assist in faster export—and thus, faster payment. Musa and Mustefa also operate a seed production business, selling seeds to the local government seed banks. Musa’s own production is supplemented by his purchase of cherry from 21 outgrowers—all of whom, like his own farm, are certified organic.

Tagel Alemayehu
After visiting with smallholders and single farmers around Yirgacheffe, we got picked up in a truck driven by Tagel Alemayehu, the owner of Olkai coffee—a former race circuit driver, whose efficiency as a driver is only matched by his humility and warmth. Over dinner at Aragesh Lodge, (in addition to teasing him about his car’s sound system—which sounded as awful as his reflexes were quick), we got to know Tagel better. For Tagel, coffee runs deep: He’d grown up in Bule Hora, the son of a local coffee trader who built the first washing station there and installed the first Pinhalense dry huller in Ethiopia. Starting in 2004, he worked as washing station manager at one of first specialty natural stations in Guji, and founded Olkai in 2018 as the government export regulations opened. Olkai is a family business; his wife works as the export manager. Tagel and Olkai operate a half dozen washing stations in the south dotting many of the most sought-after regions for quality in Guji, Bule Hora and Sidama. Tagel’s ties to the community were forged over 20 years of collecting cherry from these regions. Community members later sold land to make space for him to operate a washing station in their community, and many stopped us along our journey out of Hambella to say hello to Tagel and chat.

Bekele Balacho
The de-facto leader and organizer of a collective of independent smallholder farmer-exporters around Bensa, we’ve been buying Bekele Balacho since 2019—Crop to Cup was his first direct export customer. A family man—he has 11 children with his two wives—Bekele operates his farms and drying stations with the help of his family. His son, Beleteno, who graduated this year from Hawassa University with an economics degree, manages his Hora Ganet farm (which means “Spring Paradise”). Between his farm in Bombe and a smaller, 5 hectare farm in Kokose (with its own drying station), Bekele purchases cherry from more than 100 smallholders, producing a total of 1.5 containers of coffee. Like many collectors in Ethiopia, his bottleneck, with cherry prices as high as they are, is financing. Bekele is a connector and a consummate professional—an ideal partner, willing to engage with every idea for improving his coffee and helping his community. During our visit, Bekele expanded his shaded drying area to cover nearly his entire station, protecting the natural process coffees—traditional, anaerobic and lactic styles—he produced there, and verifying their final moisture content with a moisture meter.

Basha Bekele
We stopped by Basha’s Bombe drying station on our second day in Bensa in December. Basha’s father—also a community man who with Basha built a church for the community at their site in Bombe—was once a manager for a co-op in Bombe that supplied coffee to the Sidama Union. Before the government made it possible for smallholders to obtain export licenses, both he and his father sold their cherry to the cooperative. Basha now has his own export license and grows coffee (primarily 74158, known locally as “Walega”) in semi-forested plots on 12 hectares in addition to operating collection sites in Bombe, Shantawane, and Kokose—collecting cherry from producers growing coffee as high as 2300 masl. While cherry prices were high this year, Basha maintained a practice we didn’t see everywhere: delivering a second payment to the 126 producers he bought cherry from once the coffee sold. Like most smallholders around Bensa, Basha exclusively produces dry processes—which includes experiments with anaerobic styles of fermentation—and practices cherry flotation before drying his coffee slowly on raised beds (with some preparations drying under shade). This is our first import from Basha.

Kefyalew Deressa
Just minutes from the gates of the famous Nano Challa cooperative, Kefyalew Deressa’s Genji washing station sits tucked at the edge of the Belete-Gera forest. Kefyalew’s start in coffee came somewhat unexpectedly. While working as a server at Central Jimma Hotel (our hotel of choice while traveling in the West), a representative for Penagos took an interest in him and, toward the end of their conversation, offered him a job as a Penagos technician. He took the job and worked for Technoserve, helping them install and service Penagos ecopulpers across the country and, over time, began to communicate directly with Penagos—eventually becoming the company’s exclusive distributor in Ethiopia. Kefyalew continues to distribute Penagos equipment as well as Draminsky moisture meters and plastic material used for covering raised beds. He bought his washing station in Gera three years ago, installed a Penagos ecopulper, and began production by purchasing cherry from some 250 smallholders. His outgrower program continues even as his own farm, planted with variety 74110, has begun to produce. At Gera Genji, Kefyalew produces washed coffee and naturals, and is experimenting with anaerobic style coffees. This is our second import from Gera Genji.

Neja Fadil
A former footballer for the local district team, Neja Fadil built his washing station in Uraga in 2017 after working for several years as a coffee collector on commission for other washing stations. The Neja Fadil wet mill has registered about 250 farmers who are located in the villages surrounding the wet mill (in Tobitu Tuta kebele). Growing at altitudes above 2,000 meters, coffee from this region—and in particular, directly surrounding the washing station—is young, only recently having been planted and quickly developing a reputation for quality. As is becoming increasingly common at private washing stations in Ethiopia, Neja’s station is currently expanding registration of farmer suppliers and launching agronomy trainings to expand quality control to the farm level. While we’ve been buying coffee from Neja since 2019, we didn’t have his coffee as part of our 2022 import from Ethiopia; with domestic prices as high as they were, Neja chose to sell coffee to the local market, reinvesting his profits in starting a tire importing business and securing financing to build his own dry mill at a second drying station, which will exclusively produce naturals. We’re thrilled to have his coffee back on our offer sheet for 2023.

Wandamu Feleke
The former secretary of the Nano Challa cooperative, Wandamu (whose name means “brother”) now exports coffee from his 11 hectare farm in Gera under his father’s export license. Like many of the higher-quality producers in the West, Wandamu grows variety 74110 under the canopy of Gera’s montane forests. Wandamu, who has four children, comes from an agricultural family—he and his father began to grow coffee 10 years ago after previously growing teff and sorghum. Wandamu is a driven and motivated producers, actively soliciting support and training from local experts—including Moata—and investing in his farm by purchasing USAID-style shade for all of his raised beds and material for performing anaerobic fermentation. All of his coffee is floated, sorted and dried in cherry under shade for 20-22 days.

Gemedech Fulasa
Last year, we imported coffee from Gemedech Fulasa for the first time. In the Gedeo culture, land inheritance typically passes to male children. But Mrs. Gemedech is an only child, so when her father passed away in 2011, she inherited his 4.5 hectare coffee farm, which sits at a wildly high elevation of 2050 meters. These days, Gemedech shines as one of the few woman coffee farmers—and one of the farmers producing the highest quality—in Yirgacheffe. A mix of Wolisho, Dega and Kurume landraces grow in a regenerative agroforestry at Mrs. Gemedech’s farm under the canopy of fruit and food staples. Fallen leaves and coffee pulp hauled from local mills are the main source of compost. Enset trees across the farm collect water from the rainy season inside their trunks and release it to the ground during the dry season. This helps the soils retain moisture all year round. According to Gemedech, she does not use inorganic fertilizers or pesticides, and, since she processes her harvest using the natural/sundried process, her environmental waste and impact are minimal. By exporting directly through her own export license, Mrs. Gemedech is able to receive 88% of the FOB export price, resulting in substantially increased income compared to the conventional model of selling cherry through the Ethiopia commodity exchange or private washing stations. During our visit in December, she shared with us that she’s expanded her cherry collection efforts to increase her exports—and has separated the coffee from her neighbors from her own into different lots.

Tariku Kare
The story of Tariku Kare is one of the success that sometimes follows when hard work and perseverance collide with opportunity. Tariku was born in Bombe and, at 15 years old, began working as a cherry sorter for a local cooperative. He worked his way up—first receiving a promotion to wash coffee in the channels, and then when a man from Awassa opened a washing station in Nansebo, Tariku was tapped to manage. Market disruptions led that owner to bankruptcy, so Tariku and 17 other workers at the washing station formed a company and took it over—with Tariku managing. Later, he opened a new washing station by himself—this one, in Arsi—to supply coffee to the international market. Once the mill in Nansebo was stabilized and had enough producers contributing cherry reliably, Tariku returned to his hometown of Bombe and built a washing station there. At his sites, Tariku pays a premium over local prices for ripe red cherry and works hard to incentivize farmers to deliver cherry to his washing stations each year.

Fikadu Legge
Once renowned for its quality, coffee from Adado has fallen out of favor with buyers in recent years due to the emergence of higher elevation farms with newer plantings in other parts of Yirgacheffe and Guji. On our way back from Uraga to Urgalem, we stopped in Bule to meet a friend of one of the producers we’d visited earlier in the week. Walking along a road cut into the side of the mountains, through dense tropical plantings, we arrived at the drying station of Fikadu Legge, a smallholder who just this harvest received his export license. Fikadu was raised in the nearby town of Dilla and after moving to Adado, began bringing bread from Dilla to sell locally. Eventually, he was able to buy land to grow coffee—he has been producing coffee for 3 years—and works with his wife and children through the harvest. Most of the coffee he produces comes from his own small farm which he processes and separates from cherry he collects from just 5-10 of his neighbors. He told us, “I focus on the coffee. I know the farmers who focus on quality and fertilize well and buy it in a traceable way.” After receiving quality training from the government, Fikadu uses best-practices for natural processing, such as floating cherry and drying slowly—over 15-20 days—on raised beds.

Nguisse Nare
Sitting atop a ridge at 2300 MASL in Bombe, Nguisse Nare’s 10 hectare farm “Setame” is planted with variety 74158 intercropped with taro and sweet potato. With his two other farms—one in Kokose, one in Tiburo—he produces natural and anaerobic coffees using his own cherry as well as cherry collected from around 60 of his neighbors. When we visited in December, we spoke with Thomas Tosha, the farm manager at Setame, as well as Demisse Turuma, the Industry Manager (the term of choice for the resident postharvest processing expert) while touring Nguisse’s drying station and farm. Over a traditional meal of enset, we learned that Nguisse bought the farm four years ago, with a strict focus on quality. He floats his cherry before drying them slowly on raised beds over 20 days.

Abdulwahid Sherif
Crop to Cup has been the exclusive U.S. importer of coffee from Kossa Geshe since Abdulwahid Sherif’s first export in 2016. His farm, in the highlands of the Kebena Forest in Limu and established in 2009 as part of a government program to protect Ethiopia’s remaining forests—of which just 2% remained at the time—is known for producing clean, fruit-forward naturals. Abdu’s rise was meteoric: just two years after he took over the farm, his coffee which won a Good Food Award and placed in the AFCA Taste of Harvest. It goes without saying that quality is continually on his mind. Crop to Cup doesn’t normally work with estates, but Abdul has been an exception, especially because of the support he provides to his outgrower neighbors. Abdu is a man of action and a man of his word, which also makes him a great partner—and when he says he will make a change, investment or improvement, it’s not uncommon to find that he’s already begun to implement it by the time our time visiting with him has ended. During our visit, we saw Abdu’s relentless spirit push forward ahead of our 2023 import as he undertook new initiatives to ensure proper ripeness selection and sorting of cherry—including for the outgrowers he buys from—and expanded his raised bed capacity, built shade netting over some of the drying space, universally used tarps for patio-dried cherry, and oversaw organic certification for all of the outgrowers he buys from. All the while, Abdu demonstrated his commitment to social progress, continuing his investments in his community—building access to potable water, dormitories and toilets for farm workers, a school on the farm for children younger than the first grade, and a transparent ledger system for employee wages.

Bekele Utute
Bekele Utute’s brother-in-law manages his farm in Kokose, which was the 5th place winner in the Cup of Excellence in 2021—a lot named after his nephew, Samuel, who manages Bekele’s Kokose drying station. At his farm, he grows primarily 74158, common to the quality-focused farms around Bensa. Like at his other drying station near Dembe—where he was born into a family of coffee growers—Bekele produces dry processed coffee at his Kokose site, which he purchased in 2019. He used to sell coffee to local suppliers before obtaining his export license in 2021, exclusively producing dry processed coffees (traditional naturals and anaerobics) for export to the U.S. and Korean specialty markets. This is our first import from Bekele Utute.

Melese Wolde
Melese Wolde’s farm in Shantawane developed a reputation for quality after winning a competition through one of the major specialty importers twice—an importer who never, in the end, showed up to buy the coffee. Melese is a farmer through and through, he told us, as we stood in his warehouse to avoid the rain, his coffee sleeping protected under plastic tarpaulins on his raised beds. He said would have happily continued to sell his farm’s cherry to private washing stations if the government had not given him the ability to get his own export license—which he did, in 2018. His son, the oldest of his six children, helps him and runs the harvest.

Kenissa Cooperative
One of the newer cooperatives within the Kata Meduga union, Kenissa was founded in 2018 and processes and markets coffee for its 305-310 members who grow coffee in Agaro. We visited Kenissa with Asnake, the Kata Meduga Union boss, in December. As we walked down from the top of the Technoserve-funded mill—at over 2,100 masl—the cooperative’s attention to detail was immediately evident: a worker scrubbed the tank used to hold water for washing to ensure cleanliness, and just a few meters away, raised beds held parchment draped with shade cloth, individually labeled with the collection and processing, ensuring traceability from cherry through final milling. The details matter, and at Kenissa, they show up in coffee. Most of Kenissa’s members grow variety 74110, with some still having a small amount of 74177. The young cooperative’s leadership is unusually committed to its success: former members who have secured their own export licenses to market their coffee directly continue to serve on its board or in management roles to help their community, understanding the cooperative’s value for improving the incomes and livelihoods of its members. This is our first import from Kenissa.

Geta Bore Cooperative
The most remote of the Kata Meduga cooperatives, Geta Bore is also the smallest, with 232 members who grow Metu Bishari Selection varieties (primarily 74110 but also 74112, 74140, 74148, and 74165) at the highest elevations in Gomma woreda, up to 2200 meters above sea level. Sitting 8km south of the well-known Biftu Gudina cooperative, members of the Geta Bore cooperative used to deliver their cherry to Biftu Gudina or other nearby washing stations but in 2018 formed their own cooperative to reduce the difficulty and cost of transporting fresh cherry as well as to have a stronger role in the cooperative governance structure. Now, Geta Bore farmers can now more easily access training services from Kata Muduga, and through the Union’s model they receive both a cash payment upon cherry delivery plus a 2nd payment after coffee export. This is our third year importing coffee from Geta Bore.

If you’d like to book any of these coffees, reach out to your trader at Crop to Cup. Many of these coffees are available in very limited quantities and will be contracted first come, first served.