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Coffee defines a people in Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia.
 Yirgacheffe is in the heart of Gedeo land. Eighty five percent of the Gedeo people are farmers. Around the small town of Yirgacheffe one of the most exotic coffees in the world is grown. It has been grown in these forests for generations in small garden plots.
As the forest landscape and the rugged hills of the Rift Valley rise, streams of water flow cascading down from the many springs. These springs form rivers that are the lifeblood of the community and one of many necessary ingredients in the process of this specialty coffee.
Warm African days turn to cool nights due to the high altitude. These cool nights keep the coffee cherries from ripening too quickly, lengthening their maturity, and helping give Yirgacheffe coffee its complex and smooth flavor.
 The family picks the coffee by hand at its peak ripeness, leaving any unripe cherries on the tree to be selected later. These ripe cherries are put in sacks and carried on the head, by donkey, or cart to the cleaning plant. Some sell the coffee to others who truck several farmers' coffee for processing.
A machine removes the coffee hull. The hull is washed away and the bean is fed into tanks to ferment the sticky mucilage that is left. After fermenting, the tanks are drained. The beans are rinsed and laid on burlap-covered tables to dry in the sun. The tables allow air to pass through the coffee beans to aid drying. Many people smooth the coffee back and forth with their hands to aid drying and prevent molding. The people often sing together with contagious joy as they work. (To hear them singing while working, download the mp3 file here)
 After the coffee is dried, it is bagged, and then trucked to the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, for final polishing to remove the thin silverskin. It is then sold at auction and shipped by rail to the port of Djibouti where it is loaded in sea containers and shipped worldwide.
Many hands touch this coffee on its long road from tree to cup. The ideal amount of sunshine and cool nights, the red Ethiopian soil, the shade of the forest, and the loving attention of the Gedeo farmer makes Yirgacheffe coffee into one of life’s special indulgences. The flavor is complex, with notes of chocolate and lemon peel, a full body and orchid aroma.
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Dominion Trading, LLC
PO Box 751
Liberty Lake, WA 99010
(509) 255-1212
Website by
Spokane Web Communications
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