Deep and rich stewed fruit in this lot composed of cherries picked near Bulga, on the edge of the Harenna Forest.

Natural Heirloom

Nansebo

We have been purchasing Ethiopian coffees through Moplaco for five years now, and have grown to trust their buying practices and the quality that they are able to offer, both in coffees they produce themselves, and those they purchase from neighbouring mills. This lot is an example of the latter. This year we have purchased a natural lot from Moplaco’s partner station in the Nansebo ‘Woreda’, or district. The Nansebo Woreda is rather rural, mainly located within the Harenna forest, where coffee still grows wild underneath natural forest cover.

The station is owned by Mandeyo General Trading, and collects cherries mainly from the village of Bulga. Mandeyo is the family name of the father and son who run the station, the same family Moplaco have helped us work with over the past few harvest seasons. It was through their work in the local area, especially at their nearby Bensa Logita station, that Moplaco were able to start purchasing coffees from stations around their own. Here on the edge of the Harenna forest we find very high altitude, with coffee able to grow at up to 2300 masl due to the protection the forest provides. This leads to conditions that are perfect for growing high quality Arabica coffees, with cool temperatures and especially cool nights leading to slow cherry maturation and very dense seeds. This natural lot showcases the incredible sugar development we find in these slowly matured cherries, with a deep and rich character reminiscent of stewed berries punctuated by a fresh acidity, and some soft florals.

Coffee in Harrar is almost always naturally processed, and along with the dry and hot climate, and the lack of shade, this means that the coffee here is often much heavier and richer than we are used to, a profile that has fallen out of the modern specialty coffee expectation. Harrar has also seen a decline in production, as many farmers elect to begin growing the popular narcotic Khat at the expense of coffee. It is for these reasons that the company chose to expand into wider Ethiopian specialty coffee, while keeping their roots in Harrar. This increased in pace when Yannis’ daughter Heleanna took over Moplaco 10 years ago, leading the company’s expansion to other areas of Ethiopia. The company invested in a large state of the art facility in Addis Ababa, to mill coffees from all over Ethiopia, and directly export while maintaining traceability. There are also processing stations in Yirgacheffe and Chelelectu, where experimental processing is carried out, and agronomy advice is given to the smallholder farmers delivering cherry.

Most recently, Moplaco purchased the Logita processing station in the town of Bensa, in the North-East of the famous Sidamo region. From here Moplaco have been providing both agricultural and processing advice to neighbouring mills, while also buying and exporting their highest quality coffees. We are proud to be involved with Heleanna’s work, an inspirational woman blazing a trail for a new level of speciality coffee in Ethiopia.