Sarah’s gift of dried coffee cherry from her garden.
Late Showing: The hyeana man feeding one of his hyeans camel meat.
Coffee trees in Harar.
Coffee trees
The view from the bus of terraces of chat lining the road side.
The ladies grind, weigh, pack and seal the coffee.
Dire Dawa and Harar
I had already planned to head off to the East prior to Timkat (Ethiopian Orthodox Christian festival), by sheer coincidence I had met Abrhaman a coffee buyer, exporter, and roaster of Harar coffees in Addis. His Mawai coffee is available in most Addis food outlets, so I was excited to have the opportunity to be invited to see it firsthand. With some swift calls from his friend Abduhman, I headed of first to Dire Dawa where the Mawi dry mill and roastery are based, then onto Harar to be shown around the city and visit some coffee and chat farmers.
Abrhaman had briefly explained that the regional harvest had been good, but domestic prices for Harar coffee were extremely high. He explained Harar varieties (Longberry, Shortberry, Peaberry) demanded high prices from the farmers; however the latest prices per 17kg were extremely high. The quoted price range at the time for Harar Longberry was 1700-1900 bir for 17kg. When in perspective, these were equal to domestic price quotes for top crop washed Yrigacheffe. As you can imagine for a profit to be made the coffee has to then exchange again for an even higher price on the ECX*.
So after an interesting bus journey, on what seemed to be endless winding roads of more chat trees lining red soiled valleys and eager children waiting for your discarded plastic bottles. I arrived in Dire Dawa, which is an attractive town with distinctive Italian architectural influences. I spent the day being shown around Mawis dry mill by his sister, who informed me, the roasting facilities would soon be adjoined onto the dry mill building. At the time it was waiting to be filled up with local coffees.
At their roastery the familiar smell of roasted coffee brought a smile to my face. Especially since the ladies effortlessly went about their work; roasting, cooling, grinding, packing and labeling of their fresh coffee, in the compact room.
I found it interesting that colour checking was not a concern; instead all roasting was done by eye. In this case to French roast. We enjoyed their fresh filtered coffee, and for the first time I accepted a little bit of sugar in mine.
After a bit too comfortable a sleep, I headed off to Harar with Mahadi and later Youseff. Harar is the capital of the Harage region and is famed for its walled city.
We visited family members in the city, who selflessly welcomed me into their beautiful traditional Harar homes. After eating we discussed the importance of the coffee ceremony, for men and women, whilst enjoying are own ceremony. Sarah said the ceremony is actually more of a gossip ceremony, which local women both call to share and solve problems. It is also a common practice to start the day and finish the day with a coffee ceremony as a family. Sarah kindly showed me her small collection of coffee trees which were intercropped with false bananas, papaya and honey in a small garden plot within her house compound. I only took a small handful and some coffee leaves, not so much to drink, but to actually keep with me until I left Ethiopia.
Later Youseff proudly showed of the walled city, where he had lived all his life. We headed out from the walled city for 2km to Mahadis friends grandmother’s farmland. It became hard to not discuss the importance of chat and coffee to the farmers. Chat itself has 15 known species, and is cultivated across regions of Ethiopia.
Mohammed who farmed chat explained why chat is more time consuming than coffee, requiring extensive husbandry. So basically the chat trees need constant water supply and pruning, which is an issue in the region, due to the sparse amounts of water.
I stupidly joked that they probably have a cooperative… and of cause they have a union! As you may also guess Americano and Columbian also mean something completely different in the chat experience!
On a more serious note I did ask if other areas had stopped to grow chat instead of coffee, he said this does happen. But to put it in perspective chat consumption is not new, it is as they all agreed now more wide spread and accessible. It is currently the third largest export commodity in Ethiopia; its legal demand is unprecedented both domestically and internationally.
From a farmers perspective Chat seemed to be an offering safer and higher returns than coffee. But as I looked at the young coffee trees, I did think about the coincidence that the highest chat and coffee prices are both found in this region. It also starkly emphasised coffee like chat is a commodity, and incentives are always financial.
Only a few tucks waiting to be given the go ahead to the port of Djibouti,
At the CLU with Fatua.
ECX
Prior to arriving at the ECX, we visited the central liquoring unit for coffee and tea, which is a couple of km from the ECX. At the time it was not heaving with Lorries, due to the peak time for exporting not yet being underway. We were greeted by Fatua who heads the coffee liquoring operations. She patiently explained they deal with some 30 containers of green coffee in a day (approx. 300 bags/60kg); whilst the state run dry mill adjoined to the liquoring unit could process some 40,000 tonnes in peak season. The main point stressed throughout the chat was the importance of a universal and standardised grading for all Ethiopian coffees being exported.
Fatua explained the CLU's grading system for exports, which differ from the domestic grading procedure of the ECX. The CLU essentially focuses on raw defects, moisture contents, cup quality (5 cupped), and bean size to assess the grade. Though there is some variation wet processed and natural sundried coffees and unwashed grading, such as allowances for moisture, all coffees are graded from 1-5. This though can be deceptive as sundried natural coffees such as Harar and Jimma both obtain averages of 4/5 due in part to the raw defects associated with the method. But in the former case of Harar coffees still retain high prices due to their unique cup qualities.
The 300g samples were selected from the awaiting trucks (some 20 bags) which were roasted in one room, and then other samples from the same lot were checked for raw defects by ladies in a separate booth. All bags are sampled for moisture contents. Then the coffee is cupped in the five round way, the Q graders are not aware of the owner of the coffee.
I asked Fatua , how much green coffee is rejected, and sent back to the exporter. I had heard under grading and over grading coffees had been known to occur. She frankly stated not too much, but rejection does occur, and when it does it's the responsibility of the owner to redress the matter.
We cupped a range of coffees from some well-known Ethiopian regions and varieties. It is always exciting for me to grapple with cupping, and build up and maintain my mental database. The cupping consisted of this current year’s crop with the exception of Harar : washed Yirgacheffe ( spell it how you will), Sidama, Limu and sundried Harar, Lemkempti, Tepi, Illubabor, and Bebeka. In this case all were commercial grades and regional locations were not a paramount issue, due to the exporter blending the coffees. I actually came away thinking more about the potential of Illubabor varieties in blends, which pleasantly surprised me.
Next we headed the commercial Ethiopian Commodity Exchange ( ECX), for the afternoon coffee trading session. The ECX is the hub for commodity contracts for green coffee and grains such as sesame seeds. It started trading in 2008, according to the ECX stats it currently accounts for 80% of all green coffee sold in Ethiopia, and overall trade of green coffee accounts for 42% of transactions. It has some 400 certified and paid members, and as Abduham explained they represent a further 9,000 interested parties. You also have to pass an exam prior to being allowed to trade. The ECX provides storage facilities (17 warehouses), domestic grading, electronic pricing system, and a legal system regulating trade and payment. The info may be a slightly verging on blurb. But it became apparent understanding the factual role of the ECX, helped when discussing coffee in Ethiopia.
The ECX itself was a hub of information, with the electronic boards being updated with the New York C prices, and on the right hand side boards with green coffee lots being listed by variety, grade, region, crop year, processing method, volume and price range. For example on our day the New York C traded at $2.28 per Ib, with a change price of 0.50 , showing it was up since the trading had started at 2pm.
The lots seemed to jump from commercial to specialty. I watched the no sell of 5UWNA12 Q1, this refers to the current crop year of 2005, unwashed specialty, grade 1, Kochere A (region), from the warehouse in Dilla. This was selling within the range of 1700-1850 birr per 17kg, up by 5% on the day before, and only slightly up on last year’s price.
On the trading real business of securing contracts went on between representative sellers (green jackets) and respective buyers (camel jackets), with independent adjudicators in the white shirts. The trading lasts for 5 minutes, by the end of the bell, the coffee is either sold , which is signified by a visual hand clap and exchanging of papers, or the coffee lot roles over and has to be sold within the next 30 days.
Adbuhman explained the maximum time for green coffee to be held by sellers in warehouses is 6 months, from the moment of being graded. Once it is exchanged on the ECX the buyer can only store the coffee for a month, before selling it on. In both cases fines would be incurred, if over the allocated time period. Both offences incurred fines, with the point being to curtail disruption of supply and demand, regardless of market prices at the time.
