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Hiro Coffee
since 1977

Coffee Investigation in Photos

 
Ethiopia

It is needless to say that Ethiopia is a sacred place of coffee culture, and there was a speechless impression that we could make to come to the birthplace.

This time, we have visited Jimma (6 hours drive from Addis Ababa to the west) and Yirgacheffe (7 hours drive from Addis Ababa to the south).

In Jimma, we went inspecting Pt.Limu that we had made a purchase through a state-run farm. The scenery of the vast land with well-prepared shade trees was just marvelous. They intend ecosystem protection and a mutual prosperity with local residents, and have gotten USDA organic certification, now applying for the Rainforest Alliance certification.As for Yirgacheffe, it is a regular production area for coffee lovers, and most of the farms are small scale in which we can see their traditional garden coffee. There is a variety of native species from old days in this area, and they bring peculiar flavor with the rich terroir.

While our staying there, there was DST (Direct Specialty Trade) held through ECX (Ethiopia Commodity Exchange) in Addis Ababa, and we had an oppotunity to go observation. Here, all the coffee in the entry are to be graded, and only those coffees which score 80 points or above (on a 100-point scale in the SCAA score sheet) will be dealed with buyers from around the world.

There was a tense atmosphere among the dealers, and I could feel that the market share of Ethiopia coffee would be enpanding more. Although we intended to join the trading too, but we abandoned because there was a worry of residual agricultural chemicals. I think this is one of the problems we can learn from a inspection on the spot.

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