Yirgacheffe is part of the Sidamo region in southern Ethiopia, but its exquisite washed coffees are so well-known that is has been sub-divided into its own micro-region, which has been trademarked by the Ethiopian government. This steep, green area is both fertile and high- much of the coffee grows at 2,000 metres and above.
At first glance Yirgacheffe's hills look thickly forested, but in fact it is a heavily populated region and the hills are dotted with many dwellings and villages' growing a Garden of coffee. There are approximately 26 cooperatives in the region, representing some 43,794 farmers and around 62,004 hectares of garden coffee. The production is predominantly washed, although a smaller amount of sundried coffees also come out of Yirgacheffe.
Sidamo (or Sidama - the latter refers to the Sidama people, while the former is what used to be known as Sidamo province) covers a large area spreading through the fertile highlands south of Lake Awasa in the Rift Valley. It is made up of over 20 different administrative areas, or woredas, with varying microclimates and altitudes; accordingly, there is a big variety of both grades and cup profiles that end up labelled as Sidamo.
The Sidamo region (along with Harrar and Yirgacheffe) is one of three trademarked coffee regions in Ethiopia and is well known for having perfect climate conditions for coffee thanks to altitudes of between a 1,500 to 2,200 metres above sea level, ample rainfall, optimum temperature and fertile soil.
Around 60% of the region's coffees are washed, though Sidamo also produces some excellent sun-dried coffees. There are upwards of 50 cooperatives in operation here, as well as many private buying stations - with over 200 washing stations around the various woredas.
Our Ethiopian Guji grade 1 or 2 was sourced from Abebe Selfa' s washing station in Bule Hora woreda. Bule Hora is a small town in the Guji Region. Abebe's washing station buys ripe red coffee cherries from hundreds of coffee farmers around the village and carefully processes the cherries from pulping, fermentation to drying. The dried coffee beans get transported to the Caravan Coffee milling station near Addis Ababa to be milled, bagged and ready for export.
