Suke Quto Farm
Guji, Ethiopia
The passion of a special producer
Tesfaye Bekele is the producer of this coffee. He is also the person who revived the coffee production in the Guji area, after the crisis caused by the bushfires in the late nineties that destroyed 5.000 forest acres.
After the fires, locals returned to the lands to produce teff and maize. Tesfaye realized that he could not stop people from returning to these deforested lands. He wanted to give people an alternative so he came with the idea to replant the forest and also add coffee trees to enhance diversity.
Tesfaye’s approach is well described by his words: “I don’t consider myself just a coffee farmer. Coffee means everything to me. All my time and energy are placed into the beans that I harvest and process.”
Encouraging the cultivation of coffee through reforestation
How is this coffee produced
All his coffees are organic and Rain Forest Alliance certified and they are entirely processed on the farm, under Tesfaye’s direct control.
His washed coffees are pulped with a pulper machine that has no mucilage remover. Coffee beans are fermented for about 35-48 hours in fermentation tanks and the farm has three lagoons to store the wastewater.
Characteristics of this coffee
As espresso-coffee lovers we were seeking for Disruptive, fruity, citrusy and acidic Ethiopian single estate coffee…and, finally, we decided to go for one of Tesfaye’s: his washed Heirloom!
Some data
- Botanical variety: Heirloom
- Processing: washed
- Harvest: November – January
- Drying: sundried on African beds
- Altitude: 1.800 – 2.200 m asl
