Featured Farm - Ethiopia Sidama Fero Cooperati

Featured Farm - Ethiopia Sidama Fero Cooperati

Our weekly special for the week of August 26th is part of our Featured Farm Series. Ethiopia Sidama Fero Cooperati Organic/Fair Trade is available for purchase online through the month of August here.

Producer:  Fero CooperativeRegion:  Dale, SidamoGrower members:  3000 smallholder farmersAltitude:  1900 m.a.s.l (approx)Process:  WashedHarvest:  October to DecemberVarietal:  Local heirloomCertifications:  Fair Trade & OrganicFlavor Notes: Sweet, medium but elegant body, currants, red wine like, subtle earl grey tea, citrus and floral notes.

Situated between savannah and lake, the rich volcanic soil of the Sidamo region is ideal for growing coffee. This coffee is from the Fero cooperative in the Dale subregion, situated at around 1900 meters above sea level. Farmers are smallholders, growing local heirloom varieties, using traditional farming methods. Yields are usually small due to lack of husbandry practices and farm inputs.

Most of the farmers here have coffee as their main cash crop, where the harvest season is around October-December each year. This coffee was picked later in the harvest when there is more ripe fruit on the trees, at that point there is less pressure on the mills and they are able to do the extra sorting required for grade 1. Fero cooperative runs three washing stations for the 3000 farmer members. The coffee is processed in the wet process manner common in this part of Ethiopia - cherry is sorted in water by colour and density, followed by pulping, fermentation and finally washing of the remaining mucilage, where another grading is done based on density. The coffee is then dried on beds - raised tables with a mesh bottom.