REGION: Guji, Oromia

PROCESS: Red Honey

ROAST: Medium

TASTING NOTES: Stone Fruit, Chocolate, Floral

There are few entrances to Guji--a distant and heavily forested swath of land stretching southeast through the lower corner of the massive Oromia region--and none of these routes are short, or for the queasy, in any way. Guji is heavy with primary forest thanks to the Guji tribe, a part of Ethiopia’s vast and diverse Oromo nation, who have for generations organized to reduce mining and logging outfits where they can, in a struggle to conserve the land’s sacred canopy. And yet the unmatched natural surroundings can be a hardship for farmers bringing coffee to market. Uraga Washing Station is located in the Guji Zone with approximately 700 small farm holders bring their harvested cherries. The coffee is picked when the cherries are ripe and then red honey is processed. When the coffee is dried it is then milled to remove the husks and stored in a local warehouse before being transported for final processing before shipment.