Ethiopia - Washed Yirgacheffe

About the Coffee

The Halo Beriti Washing Station was established in 2014 in the Gedeb district of Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia. It works with 750 small-scale farmers who bring their harvested coffee cherries to the station for processing. The farms sit at 2,100 to 2,300 meters above sea level, making this one of the higher-grown coffees you'll find from the region. The area is known for heirloom Ethiopian varieties, which have been grown here for generations without the kind of commercial breeding programs common in other producing countries.

At the washing station, cherries are sorted by hand when they arrive and again during drying. In a washed process, the fruit is removed from the bean before it dries, which means the coffee's flavor comes almost entirely from the bean itself rather than from extended contact with the fruit. Hand-sorting at multiple stages helps ensure that damaged or underripe cherries don't make it through. The coffee then dries on raised beds, where airflow from below helps it dry more evenly than drying on the ground would allow.

Yirgacheffe has a long reputation for producing some of the most distinctive coffees in Ethiopia. The combination of high elevation, rich soil, and the genetic diversity of heirloom varieties grown here gives the region's coffees a character that's different from most of what you'll find elsewhere in the world. The Halo Beriti station's focus on careful sorting and clean processing keeps that character intact.