This is a microlot from a single individual farmer in the very heart of Yirgacheffe. The exporter of this coffee, Ephtah, is a very new women-founded and led specialty group that brings years of former industry experience to a new venture.
Birtukan is a young single woman farmer, 37 years old, with a 2.5-hectare family plot in the world famous Yirgacheffe district, in the heart of the Gedeo Zone. She is represented by Ephtah Specialty Coffee, a woman-founded exporter who believes in the importance of women farmer networks and their representation in the global market.
Welcome to Yirgacheffe
Without question, Yirgacheffe’s notoriety is thanks to its consistently incredible expression of the coveted Gedeo Zone terroir. No single part of Yirgacheffe is more celebrated than the small area surrounding the town of Yirga Chefe itself, in the heart of Gedeo. (Indeed, Gedeo’s coffee is often known the world over simply as “Yirgacheffe”.) The Gedeo region is named after the Gedeo people who are indigenous to this area.
As a coffee 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 among coffee roasters, many of whom would count Yirgacheffe as one of the terroirs that led them into their profession. To many of us, the communities surrounding the town of Yirga Chefe epitomizes Ethiopia’s ideal brisk and floral profile when washed, and intense perfumey fruit when dried as a natural.
Birtukan & Processing
Birtukan is a married mother of 3 whose brother also helps with the farm. Her farm is 2.5 hectares in size, and like many farms in the area is planted primarily with coffee and interplanted with enset, a fruitless relative of the banana tree whose inner pulp is fermented and toasted as a local staple starch.
Despite such a small farm Birtukan employs 150 different people during harvest to help with all picking and, particularly, drying. Cherry on the farm is picked frequently during the harvest months. All cherry is first carefully inspected for ripeness and uniformity, washed clean, and then moved immediately to one of the farm’s few raised drying beds. Depending on the immediate climate, drying can take anywhere from 10-20 days, during which time the cherry is constantly rotated to ensure even dehydration.
Ephtah Specialty Coffee
Birtukan works exclusively with Ephtah Specialty Coffee, a newly founded exporter managed by Wubit Bekele and a small team of other ambitious and talented women with many years of coffee industry experience between them. Wubit was raised in Nekempte, a well-known coffee area, and after working many years for a large exporter as a university graduate, decided to start her own company. Ephtah has relationship-based sourcing now in West Arsi, Sidama, Gedeo, and Guji zones, ranging from central processors to single farmers like Birtukan with only a couple hectares of land.
Ephtah’s sustainability is focused on interpersonal strength and includes the following pillars: women inclusion and empowerment; community engagement; and boosting production and improving quality. Women, especially, are recognized by Ephtah as the “underappreciated pillar” of Ethiopia’s coffee industry, who deserve to be competitive in the industry, profitable, and who should be thriving in a way that inspires young women to start their own businesses. To this end, growers like Birtukan serve as local liaisons for Ephtah, linking interested growers to Ephtah and their women-centered business model.
