Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Honey Processed – Koke Coop

A very sweet and fruity cup of coffee. Tastes best as a light city to city roast. Good body with some crisp floral tones right upfront. The floral will quickly fade into strong and diverse red fruit tones, more pronounced as the cup cools. The floral/fruit will pull some balance with a chocolaty cup profile at the medium roast levels.

The honey processed Koke is what got us first loving the Koke Co-op. Fruity, sweet and wild! Although a honey processed, this cup tastes more like a Natural Processed. A very slow dried exotic Honey.

The Koke cooperative was established in 1975, and joined The Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU) in 2002. It currently has 1,153 member farmers. All of the members grow their coffee on plots of land under 4 hectares. By joining the YCFCU, the KOKE cooperative has benefited from being a part of a larger cooperative and a network of coffee producers. YCFCU has built schools, helped bring electricity to small villages and communities, and built bridges to make transportation safer and easier.

This Koke Honey was sourced from a total of around 1200 smallholder farmers from Birbes Kela, Koke, Konga, Wedessa, and Tisho kebeles bring their harvested cherries for processing at the Koke and Birbes Kele washing stations.

The Birbes Kela washing station, located in the Birbes Kela kebele, is owned and operated by Semira Negash. The site was founded in 2020 and operates as a vertically integrated partner of Tracon, one of our exporting partners in Ethiopia. Shortly after opening her washing station, Semira quickly established herself as a producer of high-quality coffees with a strong placement in Ethiopia’s 2021 Cup of Excellence.

Honey Processing

Harvested cherries are fermented in-cherry for two days prior to being pulped. The pulped coffee is then dried on raised beds to its optimal humidity.

Dry Milling

Coffee is prepared for export at Tracon Trading’s coffee cleaning and storage plant on 30,000 sq meters of land in Addis Ababa. The plant is equipped with modern Pinhalense coffee processing machines and a Buhler Z+ color sorter. The machine has the capacity of processing six tons per hour. Beans pass through a final hand sort on conveyor belts. The plant’s six storage silos have a capacity of roughly 15,000 metric tons. The warehouses are clean, with ample lighting and ventilation, which are ideal for maintaining the quality of the coffee.