Ethiopia 2015

Yes, i'm back.
Due to hard work and the fact i put all my writing energy in my coffee book, - should be written by the end of next week...- i didn't do some blogging for a while.

There was a lot to talk about though and one day i will.

But today we stick to Ethiopia.

As you all know, we are big Ethiopia coffee lovers. About 35 to 40 procent of our annual coffees come from the birth land of arabica.
But not so this year.

Why not?
Well, because of 2 reasons.
The first one is the price. For years Ethiopian coffee has been price way below the value. Last year we were able to buy top notch Ethiopians (cupping 86-88 points!) for 5/6 euro's a kilo. This year we pay 8 for the same quality. On our total volume this means easily 40000 euro's of extra costs if we would stick with the same type of coffees and prices. Seen the fact some of the Ethiopian coffees goes into blends on which we have less margin, we had to replace them with some with more conventional Ethiopia or other origins.

Second reason is very simply, because of the quality.
It isn't difficult to find a good Ethiopian, but very difficult to find a superb one.
Main reason is the lack of acidity (and floral touch) in the cup this crop year.
For espresso roasting it's a relatively easy affair. We need less acidity. And so we bought a good amount of Sidamo's this year - Guji, Conventional, ...
But almost no Yirgacheffe.

We are in September and finally we have a couple of very nice Ethiopian coffees entering the warehouse. Hunkute, Biftu Gudina, Suke Quto Pulped Natural.
Again no Yirgs, but quality it is. Although very expensive. 11 tot 13 euro's a kilo. This almost sounds like Cup Of Excellence coffee prices.

Probably the Specialty Scene finally found the tasty stuff and this raised price.

Hoping for a better crop and more Yirgacheffe's next year.
Cheers.