This coffee comes from the Chelchele washing station, which is in the kebele, or
village, of Chelchele, in the words, or district, of Kochere, in the Yirgacheffe region.
Chelchele coffees tend to have a nice backbone of sweetness from toffee and/or
soft nuts like almond, with a floral and citrus overtone.
Coffees in Ethiopia are typically grown on very small plots of land by farmers who
also grow other crops. The majority of smallholders will deliver their coffee in
cherry to a nearby washing station or central processing unit, where their coffee will
be sorted, weighed, and paid for or given a receipt. The washing stations serve as
many as several hundred to sometimes a thousand or more producers, who deliver
cherry throughout the harvest season: The blending of these cherries into day lots
makes it virtually impossible under normal circumstances to know precisely whose
coffee winds up in which bags on what day, making traceability to the producer
difficult. We do, however, make every available effort to source coffee from the
same washing stations every year, through our export partners and their
connections with mills and washing stations