ETHIOPIA - BULIYE LOT#2 | Natural

This lot is comes from the Buliye washing station, which is owned and run by Buno General Trading. The washing station is located at 2120masl and the total production from this site is around 540 bags of coffee. This area of Guji is one of the most exciting in all of Ethiopia, with very high altitudes and young, healthy plants. Producers around the village of Buliye are delivering cherries to the station to be processed and alongside coffee, farmers in the area are also producing avocados and bananas.

The station has been installed in the area in 2005 and it has been acquired by Buno in 2012 and during the last ten years Abiyot and the station manager have been focus on processing in order to produce consistent and reliable high quality lots. This area of Hambella has only recently started producing coffee, where before it was too cold, now coffee can grow and thrive. Since production started relatively recently, the plants are still young and full of health and the slow growth and maturity means that the cup quality in the area is outstanding. Producers around the Buliye washing station have between 3 and 7 hectares of land, far more than the Ethiopian national average, which means that farmer training and incentivising farmers to improve quality is easier and more attainable.

Cherries delivered to this station are sorted, washed and floated before being placed on raised beds to dry. The cooler temperatures at this altitude mean that the naturals take a long time to dry, around 40 days, and Abiyot and the station manager take care to make sure the intense light at this altitude doesn’t damage the cherry and so coffee is covered during the middle of the day. Buno Trading is a relatively small exporter who has 7 washing stations across various areas of Guji producing specialty coffee. Abiyot, the owner and manager, has focused on producing the best quality coffee possible, searching for the highest elevations and filtering producer partners by quality of cherry selection delivered. Almost all of the coffee produced at his stations are naturals, and he has been experimenting with various processing methods. Abiyot works with a range of producers of all sizes, but has focused more on farmers with more land, between 8 and 15 hectares. This size of producer makes it possible to improve picking and quality more easily and separate lots to make single producer micro-lots. The cherry selection at Buno’s sites was by far the best we have seen in Ethiopia, which shows on the cupping table. Abiyot incentivises farmers by offering a very competitive premium on well selected cherries.