Ethiopia, coffee

First shipment of current crop Ethiopia has arrived!

we have an established office and lab space that has been fully operational throughout this season, this has given us an ability to function on a much broader scale in our efforts to find coffees that are cupping great and show a good range of what can be produced in Ethiopia. It has also facilitated building relationships with new suppliers and stronger relationships with our existing partners.

naturals drying on raised beds

Israel Degfa – moving from quantity to quality in Ethiopia

Israel Degfa is a young business man in Ethiopia with a sure and steady focus. He owns thirteen washing stations and a farm, across the South and South West of Ethiopia. In previous years the production at these washing stations has been focused on volume but over the last two or so years Israel has shifted his focus, and is now working on the quality of processing across his washing stations as priority.

coffee cherries, lalo farm

Lalo – an Ethiopian single farm project

We are introducing a selection of coffees for the first time, through a new project were we are working with a single farm. The farm is able to produce lot separation according to different parts of the farm and by varietal, with complete traceability. This is the first opportunity these coffees are being exposed to the market in this way. We have been working with Mohammed Lalo over the four or so months I travelled to and from, as well as around Ethiopia. The anticipation of the final results from our investment and the investment from our new partner has been mounting.

green coffee

Ethiopia – ECX colour wheel

We both want to maintain transparency in what we do and communicate why we chose any one of the coffees we sell over the many others we cup through. So we have looked at the kind of profiles we work with from Ethiopia, we have associated these flavor profiles to colors that make sense to us and we have created a color wheel of Ethiopian coffee profiles.

Ethiopia coffee sorting

Ethiopia 2016 – Part 1

Working in coffee in any producing country is like working in a shifting landscape, and for me no landscape shifts quite so much as Ethiopia. Still a magnificent landscape all the same.This 2015/2016 season has been really exciting for us because of developments in our own business which have lent us far greater scope to explore and uncover the coffees of Ethiopia.

sorting coffee Ethiopia

Update on incoming coffees from Ethiopia

We are getting in to the peak of the purchasing season for Ethiopia. We have tasted and bought coffees this year that are better than ever. It is still mainly washed coffees we are currently buying, but we have started to see a few interesting naturals coming in from the fields as well. And there will be way more to come the next month or so. There are more great coffees around than what we can currently purchase right now, We are still trying to figure out and plan what you all need, and how much we are going to stock up with for this year.

Ethiopia coffee landscape

2014 Wrap up – 2015 PREVIEW

We would like to take this opportunity to give you all a 2014 wrap up, and an update of what is going on in 2015.

Overall 2014 has been a great year for us at Nordic. Our coffees have tasted great and have been very well received in the market, many baristas have performed well in competitions with our coffees, and most importantly we have had a return of satisfied customers increasing their annual volumes with us.

coffee samples Ethiopia

Ethiopia pricing 2015

On our most recent visit to Ethiopia, we had the pleasure of cupping some pretty amazing coffees, coffees we cant wait to share with you! There are a couple of things we learnt on this trip that we would like to talk about first. Coffee from Ethiopia stands out both because of the incredible diversity of profiles across the different growing regions in Ethiopia and for its complexity in the cup. It is this complexity that has lead to these coffees being widely under valued.

Western Ethiopian coffees

Western Ethiopia was mainly known for low quality sundried (natural) coffees, and includes coffee areas (zones) like Limu Kaffa, Djimma, Illubabor, Wellega and others. There was previously some other washed coffees in Limu, where the state owned farm Kossa started with washed coffees about 30 years ago. There are other small farms in the area and private washing stations currently selling their coffees as non traceable through ECX (Ethiopian Coffee Exchange). Those are not very interesting for Nordic Approach!