SUBSTANCE Espresso

This juicy natural from Ethiopia brings all the flavour! We taste mango, blood orange and a hint of baking spices. Lip-smacking espresso for all the juice lovers.

CULTIVAR: 74110,74112 & Heirloom
PREPARATION: Natural
LOCATION: Agaro, Jimma Zone
ALTITUDE: 2,040 masl

The idea behind SUBSTANCE is to deliver an espresso which is packed full of rich, sweet, juicy fruit flavour.

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.

In 2020, Mustefa acquired a second washing station, Kabira, to receive cherries from local producers. Due to subtle differences in location and microclimate, Beshasha now almost exclusively processes washed lots, while Kabira, which has more space for drying beds, is more suited to processing naturals. The cherries are dried slowly for optimum quality over 24-27 on the African (raised) beds.

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.