This month we have the pleasure of having Ethiopia Amaro Gayo as our featured coffee. So what better time to tell you about the incredible farm, and equally incredible woman that this coffee comes from.
This coffee comes from a farm in the Amaro Mountains of Ethiopia. The area is full of waterfalls, bamboo forests, and local coffee varietals. Nestled between a National Park and tribal land, the farm is unique and beautiful. This land is the home of one of Ethiopia’s only female coffee millers and exporters, Asnakech Thomas, who returned to Amaro in 2005 to improve the quality of coffee and the living conditions of her home region. Through her farm she helps provide medical assistance, jobs, and schooling to her community.
Asnakech’s farm is unique in that the coffee is harvested, sorted, and milled all on-site, which gives her extraordinary control over the quality of the coffee. She only accepts the highest quality coffee cherries at the peak of freshness. Her cherries are then dried on raised beds to create a cleaner coffee by removing contact with the ground soil. These beds also help the coffee dry evenly on all sides, resulting in a more consistent flavor and quality.
Aside from running and incredible farm and coffee mill, she also helped found an advocacy program for other female coffee growers called the EWiC (Ethiopian Women in Coffee Association). This group helps fight for women at an economic disadvantage that may not be getting recognized for their role in the coffee community. The organization also helps provide training and networking for these female producers.
“Our hostess, Asnakech Thomas is a force of nature. Her Estate in the Sidamo region produces some of the finest semi-washed coffees you will find and she is a delight. Organic and local to her core, her influence on coffees in the region reaches well beyond her own estate.” - John Clark on his 2015 Origin Trip
Asnakech has overcome and powered through every challenge (including a literal war on her farm) to keep providing great coffee to the world and better lives for those in her community. It is our honor to get to roast and serve up her crops and we hope you taste every ounce of her hard work and ambition in every drop.