Aricha | Ethiopia

TL;DR: Aricha is the comeback kid, and the giveback champion of coffee in Ethiopia. Crisp and complex flavours are just the tip of the iceberg here. This coffee represents the true spirit of hard work and community.

 

Located in prime coffee land (and less than 5 km from the town of Yirgacheffe), Aricha washing station is in reach of several coffee-growing communities – Aricha, Reko, Gersi, Naga Singage, and Idido. Everything is perfect for coffee here – the farmer community is experienced, the soil is fertile, the mountains and forests provide the ideal microclimate – and yet the Aricha washing station was left to decay, never reaching even a fraction of its potential.

 

Enter Faysel Abdosh and Testi Coffee. Faysel comes from a family of coffee growers, and he knows what good coffee is. In fact, his first endeavor as a young man was finding good coffee and bringing it to coffee buyers in his native Harar region.

Recognizing the potential of the coffee-growing communities in the area and seeing the need for a high-quality washing station there, he did not hesitate when he heard the Aricha site was available for sale. Testi Coffee took over the site around 2018 and immediately got to work reviving the washing station – a formidable task, but one Testi coffee was ready for.

 

After a rough start, Aricha now ranks as one of Testi’s smoothest operating washing stations. The farming communities around the station no longer must travel far to sell their cherries meaning they are very happy to see the washing station operational again. While the washing station does not process each farmer’s lot separately, it does process each farming community’s lot separately. As a result, traceability extends a step further than the Aricha washing station and into the communities surrounding it.

 

Working Hand in Hand for a Better Product and a Better Future

Pretty much all the farmers in this area are from southern Ethiopia’s Gedeo ethnic group. They have lived in this area for as long as anyone can remember and have grown coffee here commercially since at least the 1920s. They are experienced farmers who usually farm on small, family-owned plots of land rarely exceeding two hectares in area. These “home gardens” are also home to staple crops and indigenous forest trees and experts believe they have helped preserve the region’s plant diversity. Gedeo farmers usually tend their fields with the help of their wives and children.

 

Helping the Aricha community

Faysel is a strong believer in working with farming communities and growing together. In Aricha, this has meant working with the regional government and getting electricity lines running to farmers’ homes. Testi Coffee has also invested in building a school for the community’s children in the area.

Around five hundred farmers from the vicinity regularly bring their cherries to the washing station. Testi would like to increase this to one thousand farmers and more. “We have a good relationship with our farmers,” says Faysel, as he explains how he wants the farmers to see the washing station as their own. Testi pays a premium to farmers who bring their cherries exclusively to the Aricha washing station.

 

In addition, the washing station shares profits with the farming community, providing an incentive to ever improve the quality of the coffee they bring to the washing station. Moreover, since each community’s lots are processed separately, profits find their way back to each community as well. In this way, the washing station hopes to encourage more farmers to bring their cherries here exclusively.

 

This was a little more tricky to roast than we expected, but we love a challenge! We’re walking a fine line here balancing the renowned Yirgacheffe herbal profile, and some stunning blueberry based fruit flavours. We settled on a two stage approach, where we applied much more heat than usual early in the roast to make sure the coffee was fully developed, and then cut things back sharply in the end to preserve the delicate flavours this coffee has to offer.

We prefer our filter brews from a v60, but we won’t judge for use of anything at all to make yourself a coffee - even a (clean) sock.

 

Our recommended ratio when brewing filter coffee is 60g of coffee per litre of water. Simply scale this down, or up, for your desired size of brew.

 

With all methods, you’ll want: a grind size similar to granulated sugar, boiling water, and about 3 minutes of brewing time. This goes for v60, aeropress, plunger, and the (still hopefully clean) sock.

 

Our favourite recipe for v60:

• 20g of medium to coarsely ground coffee, it’ll feel a little like granulated sugar.
• Set your kettle to boil, and ready your socks to be rocked.
• We use a 60g bloom, with a swirl of the slurry to make sure it’s all wet. You can stir of that’s easier, just don’t rip the paper!
• After that, when your timer is at 45 seconds, add more water to a total of 200g, and swirl gently.
• Then finally at 1:15 on your timer, add the rest of your water, to 330g, and do one last little swirl.
• Wait till it drains through, roughly 3:30 is a good time, pour into your favourite mug, and let those socks be rocked.

 

If you’d like more info or tips, get in touch! hello@coreroasters.cc