Description
This bean has a fruity flavour note of bergamot, orange, black tea and yellow nectarine, very juicy with complex acidity.
Genji Challa, established in 2019, is a sister washing station to the famous Nano Challa Station which was established in 2004 and just a few miles away.
There are now over 600 members split between the two sites situated in the Ethiopian highlands in natural forests.
Farmer members cultivate coffees at altitudes between 1850 and 2100 metres, and on average they own around 3 hectares of land each.
As is the case across Ethiopia, most of the coffees grown locally are organic, and consist mostly of old, naturally indigenous heirloom varieties, punctuated by smaller areas of an improved native varietal called 1274.
Once producers deliver coffee to the washing station, cherries are floated before being de-pulped using a Penagos Eco Pulper.
The coffee is then soaked in clean water in concrete tanks for 8 hours before drying; firstly skin-dried and sorted under shade, before being sun dried for approximately 10 days on raised African drying beds.
The washing station was chosen to be part of the Technoserve Coffee Initiative alongside other remote farming communities in Jimma, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The impact of the initiative was huge, as it helped coops like Nano Challa transition from natural processing to washed, via the building of washing stations. These allowed them to completely change the market and quality they had access to and the premiums of Grade 1 Ethiopian Specialty Coffees.
