The Story Behind the Coffee
At some of Ethiopia’s most extreme altitudes lies Guji’s Uraga region, a dense, mountainous forest that spans almost a thousand miles. Within this huge forest lies Yabitu Koba. Koba houses a processing center where local producers drop off their cherry, which they transport from their farms. Here the coffee is fermented in cement tanks 48-60 hours and dried on raised beds for 7-8 days. The focus here is on producing the best quality.
Koba’s producers intercrop using false banana trees, maize, Korch, Wanza, and Sesa for shade, selecting based on the age of the coffee plant and its other needs. Their soil is a highly fertile sandy loam with good water retention and drainage. It’s self-sufficient with proper planting practices and doesn’t require fertilizer to produce spectacular quality.
The farmers of Koba belong to the Oromo people and speak Oromiffa. They maintain certain ancestral customs and have a quiet lifestyle built almost entirely around coffee farming. The producers here are recognized by the specialty coffee world for their great dedication, ancestral coffee wisdom, and phenomenal quality. They are cultivating coffee like it was originally discovered, in the high forests of Ethiopia.
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