Chelchele station is in the coveted Gedeb district, the southernmost district of Ethiopia’s famous Gedeo zone. Nearly all of Gedeb is known for its gifted processing climate and experienced growers. Washed and natural coffees alike from this area tend to be dense and fruit-forward, ranging from sparkling clean acidic fruits to jammy or herbal concentrated sweetness. Gedeb and Its Coffee: Gedeo zone is a narrow section of Ethiopia’s southern highland plateau dense with savvy farmers, a famous terroir, and high competition for cherry. Gedeo is frequently referred to as “Yirgacheffe”, after the zone’s most famous central district. Gedeb, however, is a terroir, history, and community all its own that merits unique designation in our eyes. Coffees from this district, much closer to Guji zone than the rest of Gedeo, are often the most explosive cup profiles we see from anywhere in Ethiopia. Naturals tend to have perfume-like volatiles, and fully washed lots are often sparklingly clean and fruit candy-likein structure. The Gedeb district is a remote but impressively industrious area for coffee production. Half of its territory is planted with coffee. The city of Gedeb itself is a bustling outpost that links commerce between the Guji and Gedeo Zones, with an expansive network of processing stations who buy cherry from across zone borders. The communities surrounding Gedeb reach some of the highest growing elevations for coffee in the world and are a truly enchanting part of the landscape. Worka Chelchele Worka Chelchele is located in northeast Gedeb close to the Guji border. It is a remote but impressively industrious area for coffee production. Up to a few years ago when coffee exports were allowed only limited channels, the vast majority of coffee grown in this area was either processed and exported by the Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU), consolidated under the wide-reaching Worka Cooperative, or sold anonymously through the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX). Today, however, in
addition to the Worka Cooperative splitting into multiple smaller coops, there are increasing numbers of single farm owners and independent companies who are processing and exporting directly. It is an exciting time to be buying in Gedeb, where we expect to see new layers of coffee continuously unfold as its local industry accelerates. Tracon Coffee’s Worka Chelchele Station: Royal’s perennial relationship with Tracon Coffee has delivered one of those new layers, leaping from several years of receiving exquisite traceable micro-lots to this year’s cutting edge of processing innovation. This 10 day freezer processed lot, impossible to imagine just a few years ago, is now here thanks to the curation of an exceptional supply chain. The journey started in typical fashion, in which 481 coffee producers with average plots of just a few acres deliver their ripe cherries to the Worka Chelchele station where the cherries are meticulously sorted and floated, then vacuum sealed in airtight bags and placed in a freezer to extend the maceration period to 10 days. Next the cherries are taken from their frozen state and placed on drying beds for 21 days. Raised beds are carefully constructed to ensure proper air circulation and temperature control, for optimal drying. After drying and a period of rest, the cherries de-husked and trucked to Addis Ababa for their final dry milling and preparation for export.
