Ethiopia – Yirgacheffe, Chelchele, Washed

Bean Basics

How we are using this coffee

Washed offerings from Ethiopia add that extra pep of acidity in a blend at small percentages (20-40%) and can really make them sing. It is a staple for our light-medium Espresso Blend that we roast for customers and also sell as green coffee for you to roast. It can also double as a single origin offering in the light-medium roast level if you are going to be post blending coffees.

About this coffee

This coffee comes from the Chelchele washing station, which is in the kebele, or village, of Chelchele, in the words, or district, of Kochere, in the Yirgacheffe region. Chelchele coffees tend to have a nice backbone of sweetness from toffee and/or soft nuts like almond, with a floral and citrus overtone.

Coffees in Ethiopia are typically grown on very small plots of land by farmers who also grow other crops. The majority of smallholders will deliver their coffee in cherry to a nearby washing station or central processing unit, where their coffee will be sorted, weighed, and paid for or given a receipt. Coffee is then processed, usually washed or natural, by the washing station and dried on raised beds.

The washing stations serve as many as several hundred to sometimes a thousand or more producers, who deliver cherry throughout the harvest season: The blending of these cherries into day lots makes it virtually impossible under normal circumstances to know precisely whose coffee winds up in which bags on what day, making traceability to the producer difficult. We do, however, make every available effort to source coffee from the same washing stations every year, through our export partners and their connections with mills and washing stations.

Roast Events

Roast profile recorded on an MCR-2 Digital