What is Yirgacheffe?
With a brand new Washed Ethiopia offering from KLLR Coffee, we are now serving two coffees from the coffee area of Yirgacheffe!
Yirgacheffe (or Yirga Cheffe) is one of the most popular and well known coffee growing regions in Ethiopia. In the early days of Specialty Coffee, origin and traceability found new significance as the industry moved from relying on roast level and blending to define a coffee to showcasing the distinctions between coffees grown in different regions (or even specific microlots) and processed in different ways.
The Problem of Yirgacheffe
Yirgacheffe is kind of like Oklahoma City. It means different things to different people and it’s boundaries are both clearly marked, and generalized.
Just like someone might refer to Moore and Bethany as a part of Oklahoma City, Yirgacheffe can refer to a fairly large coffee growing area that encompasses several political zones within the political region of Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples, in Southwestern Ethiopia. Further, in the Gedeo Zone, within the SNNP Region, Yirgacheffe is the name of a woreda or district. This is similar to the 620 square-mile boundary that is the City of Oklahoma City.
To be even more specific, Yirgacheffe is also the name of a washing station in the woreda of Yirgacheffe. Talking about coffee in Yirgacheffe is like someone driving along the Oklahoma City Boulevard, seeing the new Oklahoma City Convention Center on their right and the Oklahoma City Streetcar on their left wondering if the parks on either side are also named Oklahoma City.
Why does it matter? If we are to say that being able to trace where a coffee comes from, that it matters that people know who produced the coffee they are drinking, then we should seek to know the right information. A coffee from Yirgacheffe is going to be delicious. The region is full of incredible coffees, but it’s also home to hundreds of thousands of people who produce their own coffees and deserve the recognition for their own coffee, no matter if the coffee comes from a single producer, like Tiqiset Wakqo in Idido, Yirgacheffe, or from the Worka Cooperative in Worka, Gedeb.
About Tiqiset Wakqo
KLLR Coffee’s “Natural Africa” is a sun-dried offering from producer, Tiqiset Wakqo. Tiqiset owns a productive but small farm of 20 acres in Idido in the woreda or district of Yirgacheffe, Gedeo Zone and was processed at the Abebe Muligeta Wet Mill. With some help from the Sun-Dried process of removing the fruit of the coffee cherry from the seed, this coffee reminds of strawberry pop tarts and milk chocolate.
About Worka Cooperative
KLLR Coffee’s “Washed Ethiopia” is a washed offering from the Halo Fafate Washing Station in Worka, Gedeb, also in the Gedeo Zone. The washing station serves 900 smallholder farmers growing coffee in small garden-sized plots and use coffee as supplemental income as well as for personal use. In the cup, we taste jasmine, lemon, and chocolate.
