Introduction to the Gedeo producing area of Yega, Ethiopia. How about the flavor of dried fruit coffee beans on the Yega Xuefei tree

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This is not just the introduction of a new product, through the debut of this coffee, we will officially explore the next generation of Ethiopian coffee.

Among several trends in the development of boutique coffee in Ethiopia, an important trend and forecast that we discussed with you at the cup test the year before last is the rise of the single farm system. If you recall, according to the Ethiopian decree, there are three coffee export systems: (1) the largest private processing plant system for export through ECX; (2) the cooperative system; and (3) the single farm system. In these three systems, cooperatives and single estates can be exported directly without competitive bidding through ECX, which can be said to have completely reliable traceability / product curriculum vitae (traceability). However, if we get to the bottom of the matter, the cooperative is, after all, a centralized treatment of cherries harvested by small farmers, not 100% traceable. After all, a single farm is the only possibility of moving forward to the next generation.

In fact, the single farm system has always existed in Ethiopia, but the proportion has not been high, and it has traditionally belonged to a large number of commercial batches that do not attach importance to quality. With Ethiopia's emergence in the third wave of boutique coffee in the past two or three decades, in addition to traditional coffee workers, Ethiopia has also gradually emerged a number of new talents influenced by Western culture, hoping to bring changes to this industry. in addition to traditional exporters have devoted themselves to producing areas, they have also attracted an upsurge of returning from Europe and the United States to their hometown. The owner of this batch of farms, Aman, was educated in the West and had complete experience in Western companies. What is more amazing is that after returning to Ethiopia, he served as the Chief operating Officer (Chief Operation Officer) of ECX before setting up his own coffee production company. Based on the principle of neutrality in the official organization, he was unable to intervene in production or business during his tenure, and was finally able to show his ambition after leaving his post. How important is the single farm system (which we temporarily call Single Farm Project, or SFP for short)? We all know that Ethiopia is dominated by a smallholder system, but the smallholder system is impossible to achieve very important implementation concepts such as full traceability, single variety batches, special treatment batches, customized batches and so on. Single farm is the only answer to all these questions.

The site selected by Aman is located in what can be said to be the quintessential region of the generalized Yega Chefen region, that is, the Gedeb area (or, if it is classified according to the producing area of ECX, it belongs to Cochele Kochere). Gedeb is located in the southeast corner of Yega Chefen, about 50 kilometers south from the town of Ye Jia Xue Fen, and 2030 meters above sea level from 1850 m up to the processing plant, which can be said to be the highest area of Ye Jia Xue Fen. Coffee people often refer to this area as Gedeb, mainly because the largest town center in the area is named after Gedeb, and it takes about 15 minutes to drive further east to the left of the town of Godibe. At this point, it can be said that we have reached the most far-reaching zone, and we will arrive at Worka in less than ten minutes.

If you have the opportunity to come here with us, you will feel the shock of us. As the SCAA slogan says, "Because great coffee doesn't just happen".

Harvesting and selecting fully ripe bright red cherries is already the most basic (let us remind you that this is very difficult to achieve in Ethiopia, which is dominated by a smallholder system, and generally can only rely on hand-picked work on the scaffolding). The sun treatment here uses the most stringent and exquisite work, so the cherries on the scaffolding are only one layer thick, and the drying schedule is strictly controlled at about 18 days, so we gave him a simple name (SLD-Single Layer Drying/Slow Drying). The single-layer stack provides the most perfect convection and dry environment for coffee cherries, which is well known, but it is the most space-consuming and unfavorable mode of production. Proper slow drying can make coffee cherries develop the best water activity during the drying process, which not only develops the flavor better, but also allows the storage of raw beans in the production season to last longer, but again, this way prolongs the time required for each batch of production, using such a drying process, not only depends on the weather to eat, but also the producers are willing to invest. Not only are we attracted to Aman's insistence on the quality of coffee, but even third-wave operators in Europe and the United States, such as intellectuals (Intelligentsia) and Klach, are bound to choose beans every year.

It is also worth noting that the storage warehouse of this farm has a batch management system that is rare in Ethiopian coffee. Each bag of shell beans has a batch management system that can be traced back to a specific harvest date, treatment date, drying process and scaffolding number.

Tree dried fruit drying method

Some farmers deliberately let coffee berries naturally dry "dried on the tree" or "Tree Dry-Process" on trees-coming from beans harvested at a late stage, after the cherry has already dried on the tree. To put it simply, in the sunny season, let the coffee fruit bask in the purple-black dried fruit on the tree, harvest it and then use the general sun treatment.

Dried on the tree is common in Yemen and Brazil, and it has recently been found that beans in Bali in Indonesia use this technique of breaking branches without picking, making the coffee sweeter but less bright. At the same time, this will keep the coffee berries on the tree longer without fermenting, but only if the weather temperature is moderate and the coffee fruit (tree) is in shade. It is best not to do this in areas with low elevations and high temperatures, because coffee berries begin to ferment directly on the trees and affect the flavor quality of coffee.

The dried fruit on the tree, literally, is the fruit dried on the tree. When the coffee cherry is naturally dried on the tree, it not only fully absorbs the nutrients of the tree, but also absorbs a lot of sunlight, so the aroma, sweetness and flavor will be richer. However, the relative harvest time is reduced, and more fruit will fall when dried, so it becomes a more expensive boutique coffee. In this way, the dried fruit on the tree is not only sour and sweet, but also bitter and balanced. There will be some bitterness in the aftertaste, but the dried fruit on the tree itself has a unique taste, not only clean, but also great flavor.

What do you do with dried fruit coffee on the tree? What are the characteristics?

In the drying treatment of the tree, this method requires sufficient sun exposure so that the fruit can be evenly dried on the tree, and it must be harvested one by one by hand to ensure that each fruit harvested is dry enough. and can only harvest the fruit from the top of the tree to the middle of the tree, and the fruit below the middle of the tree cannot be used because of the lack of sunshine and the degree of dryness. There will be a lot of fruits that can not be used to be discarded or sold cheaply in fruit trees that are dried in oysters.

After harvest, there is also a scaffolding sun. The moisture and sweetness of these hand-harvested ripe brown fruits are still very uneven. Through the scaffolding sun, their moisture content is more uniform and their sweetness develops more completely.

In addition, since Ethiopian coffee is considered by most people to be the origin of coffee, there are more than 4, 000 unnamed coffee varieties in Ethiopia, so when buying Ethiopian coffee beans, most of the varieties will be marked as Heirloom. Coffee beans are large and small, and the same batch of coffee beans will contain more than ten coffee varieties. Specific varieties can not be summed up as in Central and South America, but in recent years, a great progress has been made when the world-famous raw bean merchant Ninety Plus (or 90+) began to plan to plant a single variety of Yega Xuefei, which is called VARON (Variety variety + One single).

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