Ethiopia - Meguda Single Farm
Country: Ethiopia
Region: Fuji, Megada.
Process: Natural
Varietal: Heirloom
Altitude: 1700 - 1900 m.a.s.l
Flavours: Chocolate Ice Cream, Melon, Pistachio
Guji
Guji is a zone in the Oromia Region of southern Ethiopia. Most residents of this region are Oromo and speak the Oromo language, which is entirely different from Ethiopia’s main language of Amharic. Like many of the country’s coffee growing regions, the culture of the Guji Zone varies from woreda to woreda and speaks to the diversity of people who cultivate coffee. More small washing stations are being built in Guji to respond to the demand for improvements in processing to fully capture the range of attributes found in Ethiopian coffee. The Zone’s principal fresh water source is the Ganale Dorya river, which also acts as the boundary line with the neighboring Bale zone to the east.
To the west, Guji borders the southern Gedeb woreda of the Gedeo Zone in the neighboring Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region, part of the Yirgacheffe coffee growing area.
Farm Information
Bette Buna is a vertically integrated coffee company founded in 2020 by husband and wife Dawit and Hester. Their coffee journey began following the passing of Dawit’s grandfather, who farmed coffee with his wife, Emame, in Tefari Kela, Sidama for nearly a century. Dawit and Hester took over operations at the family farm committed to the mission of creating equal opportunities for coffee communities through the production of outstanding coffee. Today, Bette Buna operates farms in the coffee growing regions of Guji, Yirgacheffe, Sidama, and Bench Maji, as well as sourcing coffee from allied farmers throughout these regions.
This coffee is a single farm lot sourced from Bette Buna’s farm in the Megadu woreda of Ethiopia’s Guji zone. The farm covers 220 hectares of land, and is divided into plots of semi-forest and wild forest with coffee planted throughout. Employees at the farm are a mixture of full-time and seasonal employees totaling 850 people who are responsible for harvesting, sorting, and processing each lot. In addition to providing a living wage for the employees, Bette Buna also provides weekly transportation to the relatively remote farm, housing, meals, and satellite education for employee’s children who travel with their parents to the farm during the busy season.
This coffee underwent Natural processing. Ripe coffee cherries were hand picked from the farm’s semi-forest plots before being placed onto raised drying beds. The cherries were dried 3–5 weeks, spending half of the time in full sun exposure and half of the time shaded. After the coffee reached its ideal humidity the dried cherries were rested in sealed GrainPro bags before finally being milled, sorted, and packaged for export at Bette Buna’s dry mill near Addis Ababa.
As the coffee industry continues to grow in Ethiopia, the country’s historic growing areas don’t always match up with the current-day maps defining Ethiopia’s geography. Our goal is to provide the clearest and most accurate information about the coffees that we offer, and we’re proud to provide the most specific location information we have for these coffees.
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