Citrus sour Ethiopia | Yega Xuefei YirgacheffeChelelektu

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Citrus sour Ethiopian | Yega Xuefei production area Xueyitu YirgacheffeChelelektu coffee bean characteristics and flavor?

Chelelektu will return to the warehouse in Antwerp this year! For the second year in a row, we have a lot to offer at Kochere, the famous laundry station. Chelelektu is a small town in the Kochere woreda or district of the Gedeo district of the southern country, ethnic and people's areas. Kochere is located in the south of Yirgacheffe, west of Gedeb and northeast of Oromia.

Over the years, Chelelektu coffee has become synonymous with quality. This is barista's favorite coffee competition. Coffee from Chelelektu is famous for its typical Ethiopian origin-vibrant floral aromas with soft citrus and peach notes. The coffee beans were handled very well at the laundry station in the town of Chelelektu, and when we first picked them up, they were dark turquoise. In the meantime, use a pulp machine and water to physically remove the skin of fresh cherries. Remove the sugar coating or mucus around the parchment during fermentation. Once the fermentation is complete, wash the parchment thoroughly with clean spring water to remove all trace fermentation mucus. In Chelelektu, dry the parchment on a raised bed for 10 to 12 days until the inside of the beans reaches 12% moisture. This mild dryness in the shade leads to concentrated cups and a long shelf life.

Clean and dry beans are stored in a warehouse with an area label and graded. Usually, coffee is sold to exporters on the commodity exchange. These exporters can sell to the international coffee market.

In the Gedeo area, coffee is usually grown on a very small scale in the gardens of producers, where it is intercropped with other subsistence crops. The reddish brown soil in this area has a high iron content, with a depth of more than 1.5 meters. You might ask why this is important for coffee.

Deep soil allows the development of a wide range of roots, which means that coffee plants can get more nutrients and water from the soil. Deeper roots also mean stronger and taller trees. Soil depth also determines soil water storage and nutrient storage capacity. Deeper soil will naturally provide more nutrition and water for the plants growing in it. Plants get nourishment from air, water and soil. Soil and its nutrients can be region-specific and vary with local geology. As mentioned earlier, the soil of Gedeo has a high content of iron. Iron is one of the micronutrients and plays an important role in the function of coffee plants. Nutrition is necessary for the production of chlorophyll, which is important for photosynthesis so that plants can absorb energy from light. Of course, high-speed soil and many other factors provide plants with more energy to grow and produce cherries.

In 2008, Ethiopia began to centralize all coffee exports through the newly established Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX). This eliminates the ability of most roasters and importers to provide accurate information on the traceability of coffee. Until December of the same year, growers could sell directly to export markets, but this later followed. Since then, the difficulty of identifying precise Ethiopian provenances-a stone of special coffee-has been a great frustration for buyers. In the consumer market.

Today, about 90 per cent of coffee passes through ECX and is graded according to its profile, then graded and marked as exit. G1 batches like this are the highest level and the supply is limited. However, when purchased through ECX, the only traceability information provided even for these highly sought-after batches is the production area code, such as & # 39 Yirgacheffe coffee 39; or & # 39 Yirgacheffe coffee 39, which is the coffee producing area, or Chelelektu,Yirgacheffe, indicating that the coffee usually comes from the town of Chelelektu and around the Yirgacheffe producing area.

Obviously, ECX still dominates Ethiopian coffee. Only about 10% to 13% of coffee growers are now eligible to buy "directly" through cooperatives or plantations, which is often seen as the right direction to control farmers' sales and traceability. However, this percentage has remained relatively stable since the establishment of ECX.

Recently, the Ethiopian Coffee Commission launched a bar code system that "traces" certain batches after ECX first anonymously purchased washing stations and central processing units. However, the system is now on trial and is only extended to a negligible amount of coffee in the 15amp 16 system. Even with this new barcode system, it is important to remember:

Exporters still do not get traceability details before bidding. This means that even with bar codes, exporters will buy coffee as they do now: only access to regional and quality codes, for example. Sidamo A4 .

Only after purchase will the exporter receive traceability details. These details will be standardized, and it is not clear to what extent they themselves will add value.

In addition, the exporter had no incentive to bid a higher price for such batches because he / she did not know whether the batches under the hammer were traceable at the time of the auction. In view of this, the owner of the laundry station putting coffee at auction may not be encouraged to participate in the new scheme. However, this remains to be seen. We are following the results with interest because the concept looks promising.

All the Ethiopian coffee we buy at Mercanta is selected on the basis of its excellent cup shape. This remains the guiding principle for all the origins of our coffee purchases in Ethiopia and ours. We also believe in standards and laws that belong to the original countries and will always operate 100% in those countries.

We are monitoring the situation of traceability in Ethiopia. But no matter how it develops, we will continue to pass many samples and provide the best samples we can find.

About the Yirgacheffe area

Yirgacheffe is actually part of the Sidamo region of southern Ethiopia, but its exquisite washed coffee is well known and has been subdivided into its own microzones. This steep green zone is fertile and tall-most coffees grow at or above 2000 meters.

At first glance, the hills of Yirgacheffe look dense-but in fact it is a densely populated area dotted with homes and villages and growing so-called "garden coffee". There are about 26 cooperatives in the area, representing about 43494 farmers and about 62004 hectares of garden coffee. Although a small amount of dry coffee also comes from Yirgacheffe, it is mainly produced by washing.

About 85% of Ethiopians still live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for a living; each family usually lives in a mild home (usually a round mud hut) and grows their own land, where they grow cash crops and food for their own consumption. In Yirgacheffe, coffee is one of the main cash crops-covering an area ranging from half a hectare to 1.5ha (the latter is considered large). This is usually grown in conjunction with the second cash crop-the big-leaf tree usually used to make roofs (and shading providers of coffee), called "fake bananas". It looks like a banana tree, but it's not-on the contrary, its thick stems are used to produce nutritious flour and batter, which are the main ingredients (especially in southern Ethiopia).

Ethiopia has only one major harvest each year-which usually occurs in November and December, throughout all developing regions of the country. There are an average of four passes during the harvest, and the last pass for natural coffee in areas where washing and natural products are produced. Then, the washed coffee is usually pulped on the same day it is picked (usually in the evening / night), divided into three grades by weight (heavy, neutral and floating), fermented (time variation-usually between 16 and 48 hours), washing is then usually re-graded in the washing channel. The beans are then placed on an African bed, where they are usually sorted by women by hand.

Ethiopian coffee is produced by Arabica coffee, a traditional Ethiopian variety that has long been grown in the region. The batch is treated by wet or washing (peel and pulp are removed before drying). Ethiopian coffee processed in this way usually shows great aromatic complexity and intensity, with special emphasis on floral notes. The vision of JBC coffee roasters is simple: "Let coffee lead the trend" by purchasing and roasting the best and most unique coffee, and rewarding farmers who grow their coffee at high premiums.

Planting area

Coffee is mainly produced in the southwest and southeast of the country in Oromia and southern countries, ethnic and people areas (SNNPR), mainly small farmers with an average of less than 2 hectares. These producers supply about 95% of the country's total output. Coffee growing areas are divided into different regions, each of which maintains its unique flavor characteristics. The three main areas where coffee beans are grown in Ethiopia are Harrar,Ghimbi and Sidamo.

Production tradition

Coffee production in Ethiopia is still largely traditional, usually with limited use of fertilizers and pesticides, as well as manual coffee culture systems and drying methods. There are four different ways to produce coffee in Ethiopia: forest coffee, semi-forest coffee, garden coffee and growing coffee.

Forest coffee is a kind of wild coffee grown in the shade of natural forest trees with no clear owner.

Semi-forest coffee cultivation is a system in which farmers living near forest coffee dilute and prune forest coffee in order to finally gain ownership of forest coffee. Dilution will allow enough light to reach the coffee plant without exposing the plant to too much sunlight. Farmers in pruned and weeded forest areas claim to be owners of semi-forest coffee and collect the annual yield of plants.

Garden coffee is usually located near farmers' homes. Farmers use organic fertilizers to produce horticultural coffee and mix it with other crops.

Coffee is grown on commercial farms and built by the government or private investors for export purposes. Fertilizers and herbicides are most commonly used in this type of coffee plantation.

Elegant, sweet spicy, toffee, cedar, black cherry, grapefruit aromas and cups. Crisp and sweet acidity; sticky, syrup-like taste, saturated taste, integrated with cedar and toffee aromas for a long time.