This coffee comes to us from Danse Mormora, in the Guji zone of Ethiopia.
The farm itself grows coffee on 200 hectares of land in fertile, diverse forested conditions providing the coffee trees with a shaded and nutrient-rich environment in the southern part of Ethiopia. This is the second year we’ve purchased from Danse Mormora, and again we're drawn to the sweet, aromatic, and soft citrus characteristics of this coffee.
As many Ethiopian coffee growers own only small plots of land — frequently less than half a hectare — they are usually growing coffee as a cash crop alongside other subsistence crops. Due to the small volumes of coffee they produce individually, it’s common for coffees from hundreds of smallholder farmers to be combined into larger lots, as is the case here.
Beyond what it grows onsite, Danse Mormora also buys coffee cherries from local smallholder farmers and pays them by weight. This coffee is then processed at an external washing station before being bulked into a much larger lot.
A note about Ethiopia: Transparency with Ethiopian coffee is difficult and, while we have the headlines, I wish we knew more about the specifics of this lot. Of the five countries where we currently buy coffee, Ethiopia is where I feel we still have the most work to do.
