In the Grinder - Our Daily Coffee Weblog

Cafe Imports' very own Jason Long has a story featured in the popular book floating around right now "Coffee Story: Ethiopia" written by Majka Burhardt and supported by Ninety Plus. 

Jason's story is on page 52 and is titled "Ethiopian Universe". 

Check it out!  Books can be purchased HERE

Ethiopia 2010

Ethiopian govt was approaching a problem with illegal activity amongst exporters. 50k tons of coffee which was supposed to be exported was either blended with lower grade coffees and sold into the local market at better prices or substituted with lower grade coffee and exported. Profits on selling into the local market were above 30% at times. Additionally the act of buying from your own company when they are not legally separate was everywhere. It was something which was technically not supposed to happen but the transactions were being allowed. Prices for direct coffees were very high. The govt was revising its auction system and the CLU (coffee liquoring unit) to address transparency to producers and improve the integrity of the quality grading at CLU.

The great bulk of coffees out of Ethiopia were simplified but also homogenized by this process. When the Prime Minister heard of the illegal local selling of export grade coffee he arrested and shut down many exporters.

The result is that unless you are a union or cooperative or association of growers with a license to sell to foreign buyers or a large farm with the resources to sell via the second window, you cannot export your coffee as a specific brand or specific to a location beyond the ones the ECX has. The coffee is delivered to an ECX warehouse and catalogued and then auctioned as one of many regional types on the ECX. It is still illegal for an exporter to buy their coffee if they are also involved in milling.

The DST is the Direct Specialty Trade capability of the ECX. It is an auction system developed to allow buyers to cup the coffees they want to bid on and to buy directly from a producer who will then elect a Service Provider (formerly known as exporter) to export the coffee. The auction was a success for the project in terms of the prices received but the great majority of coffees did not move.

Many Coffees were submitted and paid just above the going rates from the Unions. The opportunity to have growers organize into groups and be able to assign a good miller to represent their coffees is still in progress. Very few have been successful.

I visited Idido and Beloya with Johannes from Bagersh. It should be a 6 hour drive to yirga but it ended up much longer. Obstacles are many.

The road is basically swarming with dogs, goats, people horse and mule drawn carts. And vehicles of every imaginable type. There is a built in survival mechanism in almost every animal that lives near this road. This Hyena likely was bolting across the road at night. They are not well liked by the locals as evident by the stones and fruit that the kids pelted its corpse with.

Johannes is the manager of Idido and Beloya. The stations (both washed and natural special prep) are managed by a manager also. Currently the stations are idle and the amount of top natural coffee coming out is nil. Small bits have made it to the auction and also to a couple of US buyers. Some of this special natural was auctioned off by Bagersh and raised $2.95/lb FOB Djibouti. This coffee was intense but potentially edgy with a lot of edgy fruit. Some buyers apparently liked it very much. Ultimately I think this was a fair price for this coffee.

The Idido mill is located Southeast of the town of Yirgacheffe. The coffee comes from 1850-1980 masl (meters above sea level). Half of the mill is devoted to sun dried coffee (all of which is ripe and carefully selected) which can produce a total of 4-5 containers/year. Currently the mill is only producing washed coffee as the ECX has made this the only option. Specific coffees are still unattainable via the ECX unless it is from a producer group that has elected to organize and gain access to the export market via the second window. If Idido were to produce top natural coffee it would be homogenized into a yirgacheffe natural and blended. The specific origin of the coffee would be erased.

The near side of this picture is where the drying beds would go for the washed coffee. One crosses a small bridge over a stream to get to the area for the drying beds for the natural coffee. This is one of the great coffees of Ethiopia and the pinnacle of cherry red production. Abdullah Bagersh is really the pioneer of this coffee and his techniques in dry milling are secret and increase the capability of removing the quakers from this coffee.

The coffee at left is just regular sun-dried coffee. It is better than much of the sun-dried coffee in Ethiopia but still a grade below what we would need. The coffee is dried in the cherry to appr 12% moisture and then it is milled to remove the hull. This milling process results in a very mixed quality of coffee which needs to be separated by gravity tables, catadors (vertical air sorters) and by hand in the dry mill.

The dehuller operates with a stone or a metal rotary press against a pressure plate which can be adjusted. All of these processes can be adjusted to allow some sorting along the way. What comes out of this particular de-huller is likely a traditional grade 4 Natural Yirga which needs to be further sorted for export.

As with most processes in Ethiopia the coffee is moved by hand. Labor is available and the processing of coffee is a major supplement to the income of farmers in any given area. Women will sort coffee on the drying tables and men will do the moving of coffee in the mills as it is processed.

We had a bit of coffee in the coffee hut at the mill. Buna Arbol is the first boiling of the coffee. Buna Baraka is the second. This is a tradition in Ethiopia. The local consumption is high and it is competition for the coffee that we buy as the local price is competitive with export levels.

We hope is that the grouping of producers who make great coffee and enabling them to lease milling capabilities will allow them to sell their coffee direct. We are a bit dubious as to the potential of organizing these groups for 2010 harvest.

3 options exist for buying coffee in Ethiopia.

Unions such as Oromia, Sidama, Yirgacheffe (recently FT re-certified) or private estates with grower groups surrounding them such as Mordecofe which can access the second window.

ECX coffees which are regional in designation, but not geographically specific.

These coffees have lower value as a result of their lack of specificity so we have to be careful where we buy.

Or

DST coffees from the auction which are specific small lots from producers. These seem to be mostly coffees from Coops at this point and this was not the opening up of direct trade with producer groups we hoped for. It did create the framework for this process but we will have to wait and see how it progresses for the 2010 harvest beginning this autumn.

The Next DST Auction is on April 29, 2010 and samples should be available around the time of this writing.

I apologize in advance if this is a bit longwinded, but the view out of the window was totally amazing.

A full moon out of the plane window over  the late afternoon sky above Sudan.  A Mars like scenery below with the dust up at forty thousand feet that you can taste in the cabin.  Touching down in Khartoum on route to Ethiopia.

As the sun sets, the blue sky merges with the dust and a purple-brown replaces it.  A raspberry hue bands across the horizon beneath the moon.  Now below on the deep desert floor, waves of red sands break around black volcanic rock with the moon radiating a full moon glow.

All this color and transformation occurs quickly but smoothly, and it’s now dark outside, besides the stars in the sky.

As always, I’m excited about the trip in front of me and about seeing my travel buddies again.  This time, I was off to Harrar, the old walled city, to see Harrar coffee as it has been grown for hundreds of years.

The first thing that I note, as we drive into the highlands of Harrar, is that this does not look like any other place that I’ve seen where coffee is grown.  It’s dry, almost arid.  It looks like a place where coffee should not be found, yet it is here, and has been here for almost ever.

Donkeys are still the mode of transport most used to bring coffee down from these hills. The many Akrabis (collectors) bring coffee from the farmers to their small stations to ship via truck to the suppliers with their hulling machines.  The camels for the most part have been replaced here by trucks, but the little else has changed.

The trees are old, some of them, very old, up to two hundred years old, and the methods of farming are passive at best.  No fertilizer or pruning here.  “Garden coffee” was a term used often, and that seems to mean that the coffee grows, and you pick the cherries when (hopefully) perfectly ripe.

Why is Harar coffee an unwashed coffee?  Well, there’s really not a lot of water.  This is old school coffee.  It grows naturally here, it’s picked, it’s laid to dry, and it’s hulled and roasted. 

In Ethiopia, the varietals seem to be endless.  There are estimates for over four thousands varietals that exist that seem to be spontaneous mutations of typical.  In most Yergacheffee’s (don’t tell me this is misspelled, I saw the same poster in Ethiopia have two different spellings for Yirgachefe) if you look at the green, you’ll see small little “bourbon-esque” beans, along with long canoe looking beans.  One of the things that I noticed in Harrar was a difference between East and West Harrar coffee.

The Eastern Harrar was lighter yellow in color.  This is the home of the famed Golden beans, coffee this is pure soft yellow.  The bean size was larger too.  The Western Harrar coffee was more longberry, and overall the coffee looked rougher than the Eastern.  Not rougher in preparation, but just less moist and round, and like it had had a tougher time.  Cup wise, I’ve noticed smoother mocha profiles and less earth in Eastern Harrar coffees, but have not cupped exclusively enough to confirm this.  The woodier cedar cup seems to be Western Harrar phenomena.

I’ll blog a bit more later this month about the trip, but wanted to toss in a few photos here from our visit to the city of Harrar.  The Hyenas are a bit funky up close.  They are not small dogs, but large animals with supposedly one of the strongest jaws in the animal kingdom.

The house here is Arthur Rimbaud’s, the famed French Poet, who moved to Harrar in the late 1800’s, ran guns, met Haile Selassie's father, and apparently, in the spirit of troubled French intellectuals, ran amuck, and died quite early at 37 years of age.

Lastly, here are a few pictures of the city.  The rest of the pictures will be online later this week. 

Nearly our entire staff will be attending the SCAA show in Long Beach, leaving our office scantily-staffed on Thursday the 3rd through Monday the 7th.
Please plan your orders accordingly and be sure to stop by our booth (#163) if you will be attending the show.
Thanks!

Ethiopia is its own universe. It has its own language, own time, own calendar, own Church, and as we all know, its very own unique coffees.

As with all travel, you bring some pre-conceived baggage along with you. Along the way, you shed what you expect, and see what is really there, picking up experiences that are always amazing. The conjunction of you, the place, and that time, come together in a way that the photographs that you take can at best only serve as a flash card to spark you memory to say, “oh yea, we were . . . .”

On this trip, this was even more so, so I will split this travelogue into two parts. In a country that is claimed to be both the birthplace of man and coffee, it is easy to be swept away with superlatives. The first will focus on the coffees lands of Sidamo and Yirgacheffee, and the second on the trip.

The Coffees Lands

After spending two days at the East African Fine Coffee Association 4th annual meeting (Café Imports attended last year, and has joined EAFCA as a member) we set out from Addis to head south to Sidamo and Yirgacheffee. Leaving Addis through its construction sprawl and lack of stop lights (and stop signs) was a bit of a trip. Once outside of the city heading south, it’s a dry greyish plain. Off in the distance you can see high ridges, as we are driving in the valley of the Rift Valley, and that was too cool. To make it bit more exciting than already was, seeing baboons playing in the distance added that “I’m in Africa” feeling that is so intoxicating. Oh well, okay, back to the coffee.

After a many hour drive, we start to arrive in Sidamo coffee growing region. We have driven up for a long way, and are in a green world unlike the valley floor behind us. The altimeter says it’s about 1800 meters and the landscape is truly a wave of green. Big buckles of land that slowly wave up, and down, in gentle rolling hills. Along side the road and out in the fields you can see the familiar round Sidamo huts.

We stop a coops along the way where we have purchased coffee before, or cupped their samples. The coffees have been spectacular and finally in the specialty market, you are finding roasters who respect Sidamo for itself, as a region, and not just a “lesser” Yirgacheffee. Many of the washed coffees have that fine citrus Ethiopian characteristic running through them, and in some, that apricot flavor that seems to be unique to this area. One of our very top coffees that we imported last year was a naturally processed Sidamo. Wow, it was amazing.

The varietals of coffee in Ethiopia are mind blowing, as you would expect in the origin of coffee. (Theoretical one, though, as this has not been proven beyond all reasonable doubt, and I heard a very strong and logical argument about Yemen being the birthplace of coffee while I was in EAFCA.) Most people are familiar with typica, bourbon, caturra, caturri, mundo novo, and a few other, but Ethiopia might have hundreds of varietals. The much sought after geisha, well, I have now seen three different very distinct geisha now, and who knows what this valley, or that valley holds in terms of varietals to be sought out. It’s like the quest for the Holy Grail. The search itself might be the very purpose. (Another aside, I have seen seven yemen varietals now too!)

All is not great, in coffee land, however, as many (read all) of the coops we visit have not received their pre-financing from the larger coops. This is a real surprise, as you always assume that pre-financing goes against specific contracts, and of course the actual coops must receive the money. The coop managers are adamant that they have not received any pre-financing, and some of them have to sell their coffee to the local buyers vs. direct to the coop, or they are choosing to do so, as a protest. This trend continues along the various coops that we visit.

Not surprisingly when I return I get informed by Transfair that Sidama Coffee Farmers Union is suspended from FLO, and a few days later, the same with Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Union.

I do not have any details of what is wrong, other than the flow of funds, and transparency obviously was not there. Is this paper work issues? Bookeeping, something more? Who knows, but hopefully it will be resolved fairly and quickly.

Heading further south, we leave the rolling green hills of Sidamo and arrive in Yirgaceffee. It’s still green, but the landscape has changed, as the hills become more vertical and rolling hills start to approach rolling green mountains. We park our vehicle and are hiking through a village where we come across a woman that states that she is 110 years old. Her husband died a few years back at 97. Off the main street through town, the Saturday evening street market starts to form, with every color of ground pepper from black to red to orange appears in little containers almost as a visual condiment to the full array of vegetables. It is an amazing feast of colors. Dark green of the hills, setting sun, and the color of the market.

After three days in the field and many coop visits, it was time that we headed north back to Addis and that evening my flight home. Back in the office, we are doing all the cupping and logistics for our coffee that is afloat, or soon to be, and we are searching for more top gems from among the hill of beans.

Trip and Miscellaneous

Okay, if I have already expressed this already, this was a stellar trip! I arrived in Addis at 7:00 am after 2 days of travel, and a nice 11-hour layover in the Paris airport. (I was stuck with my luggage, so I could not hop into a taxi to go to down town Paris and watch people smoke at outside cafes under the Eiffel tower. Instead, I watched people smoke at faux indoor cafes at the airport, and got to pay about 27 dollars for a small and rather greasy quiche like substance) Back to Addis. Addis is, I am told, the third highest capital in the world at 2250 meters. It’s sunny and 85 during the day, and 55 at night, rather perfect. It’s an incredibly safe city (or least that is what I thought) as I walked the city from about 9:00 am till about 2:00 p.m. by myself. I saw the bones of Lucy, from 3.18 million years ago, at the National Museum. Wow! I have a few photos on our website, but I am not really a photographer, and the room was dark enough that could not see Lucy without a flash, and with a flash, the light reflected from the glass case, but either way, there is something magical about being 3 feet away from Lucy in the basement of the National Museum. Also in the museum is the large, almost oversized carved wooden throne of Haile Salase. Hailse Salase was the last emporor of Ethiopia. A line that they claim goes back to the days of Sheeba and Salomon (we are talking Old Testament here!) Haile Salase was most likely murdered by the Derg, the communist in 1974. That ended that line, but for those of you not familiar with Haile Salase by name, he was also know by his given name of Ras Tarafari, and was worshipped by the Rastafarians as the messiah. This was a position that Haile Salase was never comfortable with, as he was a devout Christian. Okay, after the museum, I headed off to the St. George’s cathedral, assisted by some local guides that I could not quite shake off but were very friendly and actually added to the experience. The Cathedral is in the shape of a hexagon, and looks like a few synagoes that I have seen. This is not surprising when you realize they Ethiopia has been Christian since about 360 AD This is old time Christianity. It was lent when I was there, and the Ethiopian Christians take lent seriously. One meal a day for 40 days, and absolutely no meat, or animal products (butter, dairy, etc) This is old school lent, and much closer to what Catholics observed to until lent was “watered down” in recent years. If fact, there are something like 250 fasting days for priests in Ethiopia, and about 180 for the flock. Our coffee traveling group loved the fasting foods, as all were vegetarian, and very good.

I had mentioned Ethiopia’s own calendar above, the Ethiopians use the Julian calendar, which was introduced in 46 BC and it was used by the Romans, and eventually Christian world till a mathematical error was discovered, and the Gregorian calendar came into use around 1582. The correction was about seven years at the time, and leads to the joke that the travel agents like to use, “come to Ethiopia and be seven years younger”. The calendar is just another historical thing of interest in Ethiopia.

Ethiopians speak amrachic, which is a semetic languge, and it sounds a bit like a soft and more lyrical Hebrew or Arabic.

Time, Ethiopian time is actually quite clever. 7:00 am “our time” is 1:00 in the morning Ethiopian time. It’s the first hour of the morning. 1:00 at night, is 7:00 pm “our time”, and the first hour of evening. This works quite well for a country very near the equator, but as I was discussing with my taxi driver one day, would not be too good for us way up north, as the swing in the sunrise goes from 5:27 in the summer to 7:48 in the winter.

Lastly, the trade mark issue. Trademarks vs. certificates of origin. Big legal issue here, and with all complex legal issues, the devil is in the detail, but one thing for sure, EVERYONE in Ethiopia is aware of this issue. My taxi drivers, the doorman, the man and woman on the street, EVERYONE. To them, it is simply a case of Big powerful economically advantaged countries not wanting to pay Ethiopia for it’s natural treasures. I let them know that I strongly supported Ethiopia’s right to control the name of it’s very unique coffees, and that I felt that the U.S. and Europe should work hard to make sure the legal framework that Ethiopia deserves fits into the world legal code. Just stating that trademarks are a disaster for origin certificaitons, and not valid is not enough. Terrior is extremely important in coffee and other fine foods. Coffees from Sidamo should be labled as such. Legal hurdles such as trademark vs. origin certifications are important, but semantics. Right now, Europe and the U.S. look like colonialist that are looking to buy cheap natural resource and exploit the locals.

--Jason Long jason@cafeimports.com