Ethiopia - Yabitu Koba Natural

Highlights

“Koba is not easy to get to. A flight to Addis Ababa, another to Hawassa, then five hours by road just to reach the kebele. From there, producers are another 30 to 90 minutes out on dirt roads that turn to mud for what used to be a few months a year and now, thanks to climate change, is most of it. Coffee cherry is delivered by horse, mule, and donkey on whatever dry days the season offers. The farmers here are Oromo people whose lives are built almost entirely around coffee, maintaining ancestral customs and a deep generational knowledge of how to farm this specific land. The cherry is delivered to the Hana Asrat washing station, it is sorted and laid whole onto African drying beds where it dries for 15 to 21 days. No fermentation, no pulping. The fruit stays intact around the bean the entire time, slowly breaking down and transferring its sweetness and body into the cup. The name Koba comes from the false banana tree, Koba in Oromiffa, which grows all over the area and is one of several shade species intercropped with coffee alongside maize and native shade trees. The soil is fertile sandy loam that drains well, holds moisture, and hasn't needed fertilizer to produce some of the most celebrated coffees in specialty. Farms average 1 to 2 hectares and sit at 2,316 meters, high even by Ethiopian standards. Guji is one of the oldest coffee growing regions on earth and Koba sits deep inside it. The variety is Ethiopian Landraces, native heirloom varieties that have never been selectively bred or commercially developed, growing here as they have for centuries.”