Chelbesa
ETHIOPIA
Chelbesa is the largest coffee-growing area in Gedeb woreda with a total area of 1,240 hectares of coffee farms. Located at a stunning 2,000 metres above sea level, the Danche washing station owned by SNAP Specialty Coffee buys most of its cherries from smallholders of the nearby Chelbesa Village. Quality lies in small details such as e.g. tiling of fermentation tanks, as clean tasting coffees can be produced consistently in clean tubs. Our coffee from Chelbesa is processed with the wet method.
Ethiopia is the home of extraordinary coffees. Ethiopian coffee is instantly recognizable even in blind cuppings due to its distinctive flavour made up of several hundreds of indigenous arabica varietals grown wild in the various micro-climates of the country. 95% of Ethiopia’s 300 000 tonnes of coffee export is supplied by more than a million small, independent farmers. The rest is grown by an increasing number of private and state-owned plantations. Recently the Ethiopian government began reforming the export system to open the market and allow exporters and bigger farms (estates) to export their own coffee with one condition: the selling price must always be higher than that which would have been fixed by the ECX (Ethiopian Commodity Exchange) for a comparable quality of coffee. Several farms are currently in the process of applying for export licenses and have begun to detach themselves from the washing stations by processing and selling their own coffee.