Gogugu / Ethiopia

This is our second consecutive year releasing coffee from Gogugu Washing Station!

Last year’s crop featured a light, tea-like mouthfeel with complex fruit and floral aromas.

By contrast, this year’s crop is bursting with fruit. Unlike Kenyan coffees, this one is defined by pure, juicy sweetness and a lush, full flavor profile.

You’ll find stone fruits like peach and plum, tropical fruits such as lychee and papaya, and a sparkling bergamot nuance in the aroma. From the first sip to the long finish, a candy-like sweetness lingers delightfully.

We began sourcing coffee in Ethiopia in 2020. Our partner, SNAP TRADING, is the exporter behind well-known stations such as Danche, Halo, and Gogugu. Over the past few years, we’ve had the chance to visit their dry mills multiple times.

Dry mills, by their nature, tend to be dusty and noisy, but during our visits we were struck by the cleanliness of the facilities and their significant investment in quality control equipment. Each department has a dedicated manager, and once again this year, Mr. Bahar—the head of the sorting section—guided us through the site.

Maintaining high quality in coffee requires consistent management across cultivation, harvest, and processing. Watching Mr. Bahar passionately explain the equipment and procedures gave us a clear sense of the team’s dedication to quality improvement.

Established in 2020, Gogugu Washing Station is located in the Guji Zone, Halo Wolabu district. This region is known as one of Ethiopia’s highest-altitude coffee-growing areas, reaching over 2000 meters above sea level.

Cherries are collected from 510 smallholder farms, each ranging between 0.5 and 2 hectares. Around 1800–2400 coffee trees are planted per hectare. With fertile red soil, abundant sunlight, and cool breezes, the environment is ideal for producing outstanding coffee.

At nearly 2000 meters, this is not only one of the highest, but also one of the youngest coffee regions in Ethiopia. Most of the trees are just 5–10 years old, often referred to as “the youngest coffee trees in Ethiopia.”

The processing begins with careful hand-picking. After harvest, cherries are sorted manually before being pulped using a traditional Agarde disc pulper. After removing the skin and pulp, the parchment is sorted in water and graded by density into first and second quality tiers.

The coffee then undergoes wet fermentation for 60–72 hours, depending on weather conditions. During this stage, the parchment is submerged in water and broken down by fermentation. After fermentation, the coffee is washed through water channels and re-sorted by density, with lower-density beans removed and only high-quality beans classified as Grade 1 or 2. The beans are then soaked in fresh water for 6 hours to stabilize quality.

Drying follows, where the coffee is spread in thin layers of about 2 cm and dried carefully for 13 days. Once dried, the beans undergo 2–4 hours of hand-sorting to ensure uniform quality.

After sorting, the coffee is bagged in jute sacks, classified by processing method and grade, and stored in local warehouses. Lot sizes range from 100–300 bags. During storage, the coffee stabilizes to a uniform moisture level. The storage period typically lasts 1–2 months, and additional hand-sorting may be done at the warehouse if needed.

When the harvest season ends, the coffee is transported to Addis Ababa for warehousing or dry milling. Since transportation costs in Ethiopia are high, efficiency is critical. Before reaching Addis, trucks stop at regional ECX (Ethiopia Commodity Exchange) inspection stations where lots are graded and registered for export.

Finally, the coffee is stored in Addis Ababa warehouses in parchment form. At this stage, the responsible team visits the warehouse to collect samples from specific lots. Until contracts are finalized and destinations are confirmed, the coffee remains in parchment form to preserve quality.