The Producer
Biniyam Aklilu.
Gerse, Yirgacheffe.
This lot is the work of Biniyam Aklilu, a coffee producer based in Gerse Kebele in the heart of Yirgacheffe. Biniyam runs a dry processing site and works with several small farmers across the surrounding hills, harvesting and purchasing ripe cherries that come together as a single, distinctive lot. Between them they produce around 300 bags a year - small by any standard, and all the better for it.
The processing is patient and hands-on. Ripe cherries are laid out on raised beds to dry slowly in the sun, hand-sorted for defects, and covered during the hottest hours of the day to stop them drying too quickly. Once the right moisture level is reached, the coffee is rested as Jemfel - stored in cherry - before being hulled onsite and transported to Addis Ababa.
Yirgacheffe is one of the most celebrated names in coffee, and Gerse sits within it in the Gedeo Zone - a high-altitude landscape of clay soils, heavy rainfall, and indigenous shade trees like Wanza, Girar, and Weyira. The coffee here is heirloom and landrace, native varieties unique to Ethiopia. You can taste the place.