Halo Hartume is a community near the border between Gedeb and Kochere, two very coffee-famous districts in Ethiopia’s coveted Gedeo Zone. Gedeo, named after the Gedeo people indigenous to the area, is a narrow section of highland plateau dense with savvy farmers and fiercely competitive processors whose coffee is known the world over as “Yirgacheffe”, after the zone’s most famous district and central town. As a terroir, Yirgacheffe has for decades been considered a benchmark for beauty and complexity in arabica coffee, known for being beguilingly ornate and jasmine-like when fully washed, and seductively punchy and sweet when sundried--and hardly requires an introduction. This particular coffee from an independent washing station in Halo Hartume, is no exception. It’s sweet and brisk with layered flavors of plum and date, a lightly viscous tactile, and a light herbaceousness. METAD Agricultural Development PLC (METAD) is a third-generation family owned business with a rich history that began after World War II when the Ethiopian Emperor awarded Muluemebet Emiru, the first African female pilot and family matriarch, with land in the Guji and Sidama zones that has become the Hambela Coffee Estate. A few years after the estate was established, the METAD team opened a central processing station in Gedeb to service smallholders in the area’s many remote communities. METAD is managed by Aman Adinew who returned to Ethiopia after many years working abroad at the executive level for multiple fortune 500 companies because he wanted to make a difference for his family and community. Through Aman’s leadership, METAD has strengthened the local community with employment opportunities including a workforce that is over seventy percent women, educational opportunities including university scholarships and sponsorship for a state-of-the-art elementary school with more than 700 students, and healthcare for employees. METAD was also first to partner with Grounds for Health in Ethiopia to implement a successful cervical cancer screening program for women within the coffee growing communities. For outgrower communities like Halo Hartume, METAD has an expanding program designed to provide technical assistance, share modern farming equipment, and provide certification programs for more than 5,000 farmers who are paid premiums for their cherry and second payments after coffee is sold. Quality and organic certification premiums have also helped METAD build roads and community centers. As if all the grower investments weren’t enough, METAD also has the first and only private state-of-the-art SCAA certified coffee quality control lab on the African continent, in their offices in Addis Ababa, which is used to train both domestic and international coffee professionals, as well as showcase their own coffee to buyers.
