Gera - Ethiopia - Espresso - Washed Coffee

TASTE NOTES
Lavender, Honey, Dried Apricot

VARIETAL
Heirloom

PROCESS
Washed

ALTITUDE
2100 masl

Khalid Shifa is a third-generation coffee farmer from Gera, this is our first time buying coffee from him, which we’ve done through one of our import partners Belco. Khalid has had an export licence for over 5 years and is quite a large scale producer which is unusual in Ethiopia. He has three sites all located in or near the wider region of Jimma. Echemo, where he has a dry mill and honey processing station, 110 raised beds, and a depulper. Bedeyi, where he has a drying station spanning 3 hectares with 200 raised beds and finally Gera where this coffee comes from. Gera is slightly smaller with 1.8 hectares but has two washing stations, primarily for the processing of washed coffees.

The volume and scale of producers like Khalid Shifa allows for a lot of employment opportunities as well as consistent availability of quality large volume lots. Another advantage is certification, because of the economies of scale it is economically feasible to pay for certification whereas for smaller farms it can be overly costly and oftentimes not worth it.

Between his three sites, Khalid Shifa produces washed, honey and natural process coffees, his focus is on exporting coffees for the specialty market but he does also sell a great deal of his volume to the commercial market.