EXPLORER Espresso (June 2023)

This is a brilliant example of a washed Ethiopian coffee. A sweet and structured cup with notes of jasmine, nectarine, raspberry, tangerine, and caramel.

CULTIVAR: Mixed Heirloom
PREPARATION: Washed
LOCATION: Agaro, Jimma Zone
ALTITUDE: 2,000 – 2,100 masl

Our EXPLORER is a range of super fruity coffees exclusive to FCB that aims to explore different regions and processes.

Mustefa Abakeno is a smallholder with 18 hectares of land near Agaro in the Jimma Zone of Western Ethiopia. His farm is located at 2,040 masl and is planted with coffee varieties from the Jimma Agricultural Research Centre. He has set up a small wet mill called Beshasha which he uses to process his own and outgrowers’ coffees who are all neighbours and each have between 4 and 10 hectares of land. He keeps the lots separate and dries them on raised beds near his house.

Mustefa has a small disc pulper that he uses to wash-process half of his coffee; the other half is dried as a natural. Due to a lack of water in the area and limited space to ferment the coffee, he ferments the pulped coffee for a relatively short period (8 hours) before he moves it to his drying beds (for 13-16 days), and the result is something like a light honey as there is still a small amount of fruit remaining on the parchment.

Falcon Coffees have a dedicated team in Addis Ababa through which they can work directly with small producers such as Mustefa. There is a huge opportunity to improve quality through direct relationships, as they are able to work with the producers on cherry selection, drying and farm management. They are also able to make the supply chain more efficient and so maximise the money going back to the producers.

In 2021, Falcon Addis added an agronomist to their team, Harun. Their primary focus during this last harvest has been to train and support Mustefa and the local farmers that bring their cherries to the washing station. Harun has been improving processes at the washing station: installing shade netting to cover drying beds during the hottest hours of the day, instigating cherry selection at the delivery point, tagging day lots in order to keep them separate and monitoring moisture content throughout the drying phase and ensuring even drying before the lots are assembled. Mustefa has a small field lab and in 2020 he bought a high-spec Sinar moisture reader to ensure that all the parchment dried in the stations was reaching the same moisture level before being stored in the warehouse. Harun has been assessing and grading the dried day-lots, putting them together based on quality and cupping profile. He is currently training farmers in good agricultural practices (GAP) in order to improve the quality and productivity of their coffee gardens.