Melese Wolde, Ethiopia Natural

Melese Wolde’s farm, Shantawane, developed a reputation for quality after winning a competition through one of the major importers twice. Unfortunately, the importer never showed up to buy the coffee in the end. Private farms in Ethiopia, such as Melese’s, are rare. This is a consequence of how populous Ethiopia is, which means there are not many places to have a large enough farm that can fill a container, or produce an export size volume of coffee. Melese describes himself as a farmer through and through, and would have gladly continued to sell his coffee cherry to private washing stations, as many smallholders do in Ethiopia, but he was granted an export license by the government in 2018. We don’t often have natural processed coffees on our shelves, but we couldn’t resist the syrupy sweetness and complexity of Melese’s latest offering. And of course, it’s super clean.