ethiopia yirgacheffe banko gotiti

banko gotiti is a village in the gedeb district of ethiopia's gedeo zone, where yirgacheffe is located. the banko gotiti cooperative was founded in 2012, separately from the worka cooperative, which is a larger organization. banko gotiti has about 300 members, who grow a mix of heirloom ethiopian varieties of coffee.

coffees in ethiopia are typically traceable to the washing station level, where smallholder farmers—many of whom own less than 1/2 hectare of land, and as little as 1/8 hectare on average—deliver cherry by weight to receive payment at a market rate. the coffee is sorted and processed into lots without retaining information about whose coffee harvest is in which bag or which lot.

processing and profile
there are several ways coffee is prepared for market in ethiopia. large estates are privately owned and operated by hired labor; the coffee is often picked, processed, and milled on the property. on the other end of the spectrum, “garden coffee” is brought by a farmer in cherry form to the closest or most convenient washing station, where it is sold and blended with other farmers’ lots and processed according to the desires of the washing station. co-op members will bring their cherry to be weighed and received at a co-op washing station, where there is more traceability to the producer level as per membership rosters of the co-operative.

the profile of ethiopian coffees will vary based on a number of factors, including variety, process, and microregion. as a general rule of thumb, natural processed coffees will have much more pronounced fruit and deep chocolate tones, often with a bit of a winey characteristic and a syrupy body. washed coffees will be lighter and have more pronounced acidity, though the individual characteristics will vary.

harrar coffees are almost always processed naturally, or “dry,” and have a distinctly chocolate, nutty profile that reflects the somewhat more arid climate the coffee grows in.

sidama is a large coffee-growing region in the south, and includes guji and the famous yirgacheffe.  

here is a very basic breakdown of what we look for in coffees from some of the microregions of yirgacheffe, in the sidama region.

adado: delicate stone fruit with citrus and floral layers that create a nice balanced structure.

aricha: complex and almost tropical, with a juicy fruit base and a sugary, floral sweetness.

beriti: prominent florals backed by a creamy citrus.

chelchele: cooked-sugar sweetness more like toffee or caramel, almond, and a floral, citrus overtone.

kochere: fruit tea backed by citrus and stone fruit.

konga: peach and apricot—more floral stone fruit—along with a strong, tart citrus.

** about ethiopian place names: there is much confusion and inconsistency where place names are concerned in ethiopia, partially due to the fact that amharic does not use a roman alphabet like english does. therefore, it is not necessarily incorrect to spell the region as yirgacheffe, yirgachefe, or even yirga chefe. we have chosen a company-wide set of standard spellings for clarity’s sake, but there are various ways of interpreting the phonetic spelling of certain places.

as for sidamo vs. sidama, it has been brought to our attention that “sidamo” is a somewhat disparaging variant on the place name, and we have decided to use the more acceptable sidama instead.