A little over a month and a half ago I found myself on a plane heading for Ethiopia to meet with producers that I’ve been buying coffee from off and on over the years. I had met Tesfaye Bekele from Suke Quto a couple times before traveling to see with my own eyes how he runs his operation. What I knew going in was that he produced shade grown (organic) coffee. As a green coffee buyer it can be challenging to figure out what exactly certain things mean. In some countries shade grown can mean that the farmer keeps 20 percent of their land as original ‘forest’ with coffee grown separately. In others it’s exactly as it sounds. Haile & Tesfaye’s stories are similar in that coffee wasn’t something they chose for themselves but rather through circumstances it became a tool to preserve the forests/land around Shakiso and help the community they live in. Their paths intersected with Menno from Trabocca early on and he’s been a champion of theirs from the beginning. It is through this relationship that I’ve gotten to know Tesfaye and become a believer. To me this is coffee done right.
