Banko Gotiti / Ethiopia

This coffee is made from cherries grown by smallholder farmers around Banko Gotiti in Gedeb district, at the southern end of the Gedeo Zone, an area known by the name Yirgacheffe. The cherries are processed at a wet mill in the village of Asgori.

We have visited Gedeb almost every year through our work with coffees from Danche and Halo. This year, through the exporter Berhe Hagos, we purchased coffee from a different processing station in the same area. Mill manager Yitagesu and his team built the wet mill in 2018. They now work as a vertically integrated supplier, delivering coffee directly to Berhe Hagos.

Gedeb is the southernmost district in the Gedeo Zone, bordering Oromia Region to the east and south. In the coffee trade, the wider Gedeo area is often collectively referred to as Yirgacheffe, and this coffee is also traded under that name. Gedeo was part of the SNNPR, the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region, for many years, before becoming part of South Ethiopia Region in the 2023 reorganisation. Banko Gotiti is the name of a kebele within the district, an administrative unit roughly comparable to a village in Japan. Farms spread across slopes above 2,000 metres, with fertile reddish-brown soil. Harvesting takes place from December to January.

The fields tended by Gedeo's farmers look quite different from plantations planted solely with rows of coffee trees. Beneath tall indigenous trees, farmers plant enset, also known as false banana, with coffee growing below it. The result is a landscape of overlapping layers.

Shaped and maintained by the Gedeo people over generations, this landscape was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023 as the Gedeo Cultural Landscape. More than 90% of the zone's land is said to remain under this type of agroforestry. This lot brings together cherries from 562 smallholder households farming in this way.

The varieties are Wolisho and Dega. Both are local names traditionally given to indigenous coffee trees around Gedeo. Wolisho is said to be characterised by relatively large cherries and long leaves. Although Ethiopian coffees are often grouped together under the term “heirloom”, farmers distinguish between their trees using names that reflect their appearance and characteristics.

Cherries arrive from farmers in the nearby villages of Asgori and Lekicha. Each day's deliveries are pulped together during the night. Once the skins have been removed, the parchment coffee is fermented for 48–72 hours. After checking that the slippery layer surrounding the beans, known as mucilage, has fully broken down, the coffee is sent to washing channels, where it is thoroughly washed while immersed in water. Finally, it is spread on raised drying beds, known as African beds, and dried for around 11 days.