We’re excited to bring you another awesome coffee from Ethiopia, this time from Genji Challa! This is a washed processed lot from the Telila washing station which is located at around 2000 masl near Kecho Anderacha, in the Gera woreda (administrative district), in the Jimma zone.

The cherries are sourced from the surrounding Kebeles (town/village) and the lots are named after the Kebeles from which the coffee is grown. This specific lot is from the Genji Challa Kebele.

The station is owned and run by Mike Mamo, a partner in Osito Coffee pushing to improve quality at the mill. For instance, where most washing stations build lots exclusively on the process used and the location the cherries are delivered, Telila goes a step further and also separates lots based on the day the coffee cherries were delivered. Mike and the team also store all their parchment in hermetically sealed bags - a first for Ethiopia. Not only are they producing high-quality washed lots, but also honey, natural, and anaerobic lots as well.

The cherries that are delivered to the Telila coffee station are a combination of Gibirinna 74110 and Serto 74112. Both of these are from the Metu Bishari selections made in the forest of the same name in the Illubabur Zone by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC) in 1974. They were specifically selected for their resistance to coffee berry disease.

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This coffee was produced by smallholder producers living in the Layo Teraga kebele (town or village) of the Uraga woreda (administrative district) in Ethiopia’s Guji zone. Ripe cherries were delivered by more than 700 producers to the Layo Teraga washing station. The station is owned by Yohanis Tefera, and is a vertically integrated partner of SNAP Specialty Coffee.

Local farmers grow landrace and locally selected varieties. Cherries are manually harvested before being delivered to the washing station. This lot underwent traditional Natural processing.

This coffee was sourced from SNAP Specialty Coffee. SNAP was established in 2008 by Negusse Debela in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The company operates three washing stations in the Gedeo zone, and are partnered with additional washing stations in Guji and West Arsi. 

Guji is a zone in the Oromia Region of southern Ethiopia. Most residents of this region are Oromo and speak the Oromo language, which is entirely different from Ethiopia’s main language of Amharic. Like many of the country’s coffee growing regions, the culture of the Guji Zone varies from woreda to woreda and speaks to the diversity of people who cultivate coffee. More small washing stations are being built in Guji to respond to the demand for improvements in processing to fully capture the range of attributes found in Ethiopian coffee. The Zone’s principal fresh water source is the Ganale Dorya river, which also acts as the boundary line with the neighboring Bale zone to the east.

To the west, Guji borders the southern Gedeb woreda of the Gedeo Zone in the neighboring Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region, part of the Yirgacheffe coffee growing area.