Sourcing truly great quality green coffee is often a series of calculated gambles and long bets. Buying a known coffee from a known producer is fraught with risk; coffee is, after all, an agricultural product, dependent on the seasons, the care in handling, and the political circumstances of the developing countries where it is often grown. So buying a coffee from a producer, no matter how well known, whom you haven’t met, and with whom you’ve never had the chance to work with, can be effin’ scary.
And yet that is exactly what we did with the coffee we just received from Asnakech Thomas of Amaro Gayo Mill in Ethiopia.
Back in February 2009 the harvest for Ethiopia was winding down, coffees are being processed and things were looking good. Christian Rotsko was in Ethiopia visiting farms, hunting for coffee and presenting at a conference on coffee protesting the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, the antagonist of our tale. The ECX is an attempt by the Ethiopian government to curtail graft and improve the branding marketability and consistency of Ethiopia Coffees (TM), but what it has done, in effect, was to commodify coffee and ignore the care and attention those like our partners Dominion Trading had paid to their crops, which were taken to a central warehouse, stamped with a number, and sold for dollars less on the pound than what we had prepared to offer them. And despite assurances from the Ethiopian government to the contrary, we begin to fear that they will likely implement the new ECX system this year for all coffee and that it will mean that there will be zero transparency on any coffee that might leave the country.
So what to do? At Barefoot we always bet on quality coffee people. We have found that really committed coffee people produce the best quality coffee time after time. We had heard great things about a producer named Asnekech Thomas at a washing station mill called Amaro Gayo in the Sidamo region. We had sampled her coffee several times over the years and found it delightful. Kayd O’Neil at Elan Organic Coffee imports was looking to try and bring in her coffee, one of the last to leave Ethiopia before full-enforcement of the ECX. So we jumped, having never purchased from Asnekech before. We agreed to buy 80 bags unseen and untasted and not even shipped yet. We bought them SAS so we could reject them if they arrived less them perfect, which is still a huge gamble. We also agreed to pay a huge premium based solely on the reputation of Asnakech and Elan, more than what we pay even for the Vista Hermosa Reserva.
Fast forward to last month, July 2009. We get the landed arrival sample. We roast it. We cup it. We cry with joy. The coffee is simply amazing and beautiful. So much fresh sweet Sidamo berries and cream. We accepted the whole shipment. A gamble that payed handsomely. It always pays to bet on great coffee people like Asnakech Thomas and Kayd O’Neil. Great coffee people tend to produce great coffee. And Asnakech Thomas is a great coffee person, the Amaro Gayo coffee is truly spectacular coffee.
The Amaro Gayo Mill is located in the Amaro region in Ethiopia, within the boundaries of the Nechisar National Park, and Asnakech Thomas is the only female processor-exporter in Ethiopia, a woman of great talent and skill. She inspects her drying tables and leads with a fervor never before seen in southern Ethiopia. She pays great prices for the reddest of cherry from surrounding smallholders and employs the best techniques in selecting and drying her coffee cherry. She’s familiar with every facet of production at origin, and is a recipient of FINTRAC’s USAID-funded Agribusiness and Trade Expansion Activity (ATEA) project, which seeks to improve specialty coffee production and quality in Ethiopia. Fintrac helped Asnakech install a coffee processing machine and showed her how to run the eco-friendly pulper. The project also deployed agronomists and consultants to her mill to advise her on how to create specialty coffee at every step of coffee processing — from looking after trees, to picking, to drying cherries. At the same time, Fintrac was working on the other side of the coffee chain by organizing an open outcry private specialty coffee auction. The 2007 Ethiopia Limited Coffee Auction connected Ethiopian farmers with buyers from more than 40 countries. This is the same auction system where Barefoot first experienced coffee from our partners Dominion Trading.
Asnakech knows she stands out in the coffee industry as a woman, but the fact that she is the only woman coffee producer and exporter makes her just want to try harder. “In the beginning, the farmers who bring their cherry to my mill could not believe a lady was in charge. Now they are used to it. It’s good — almost 80 percent of the people who pick my coffee are women. I want to encourage them.”
The Amaro Mountains are a small range separating the communities of Amaro on the eastern slopes from Nechisar National Park and the lowland tribal areas of Arba Minch in southwest Ethiopia, Sidama region. The local coffee varieties, relatively light population, waterfalls and highland bamboo forests are among the many unique features of the area.
MICROCLIMATE
Altitude: 1800-2000 masl
Average temperature C: 26 (F: 75)
Annual rainfall: mm: 2400
Type of soil and predominant element: volcanic rich Loamy-sand
Relative humidity: %: 60
Type of shade trees: native species and lots of fruit trees
Beginning of harvest: October
End of harvest: February
FARM PROFILE
Farm Size: 900 certified Organic farmers
Coffee growing area: 800 Hectares
Variety: Ethiopica
Process method: sun dried natural
Drying method: Sun-dried raised beds_
Annual production (60 K): 600 bags
Temporary Employees: 140
Permanent Employees: 12
Mill and company where lot was process: Amaro Gayo Washing Station
Other crops: Lemon, Orange and banana trees
Certifications or awards: Organic certified. Woman owned mill and exporter
Importer: _Elan Organic _