Ethiopia 2006

Early in December, 2005, I received an email from Phyllis Johnson of BD Imports informing me that my name came up as a potential judge for the 2006 eCafé Gold Ethiopian Cooperatives Competition and asking if I would be interested in going to Ethiopia for this event. My reply started, "A trip to Ethiopia, the opportunity to try what are likely to be some of the finest and most interesting coffees in the world, and a chance to support something that I believe is a positive development in the coffee trade? Of course I'm interested!" This is how I came to be on a flight to Ethiopia in February, 2006.

Traditionally, Ethiopian coffee farmers sell coffee cherries to a washing station where it is processed into parchment coffee. This coffee in parchment is transported to the Coffee Liquoring Unit in Addis Abeba where cuppers perform a rough grading of each lot. These lots go into an auction where exporters buy the lots. These exporters do not have a means facilitated by the auction to cup these lots in advance of the auction. They only have a very rough report on the quality and character of the coffee. The coffee is then delivered to the exporter where the parchment is removed prior to export, but it is not uncommon for an exporter to further sort the coffee or blend several lots together. By the time the coffee has passed through an importer, a roaster, and is available for enjoyment, it is usually impossible to know where the coffee came from beyond a broad geographic designation.

This started to change when cooperative unions were allowed to bypass the auction and export directly. Under this model, farmers buy a share in a local cooperative and can then sell coffee cherries to the cooperative which operates its own mill. These cooperatives join a cooperative union which exports coffee from the cooperatives.

There have been some interesting developments from cooperatives going into competition with private washing stations and exporters. Where the supply chain was sharply separated with clear roles and little communication, now there is greater collaboration. Exporters are developing relationships with washing stations to more directly encourage the production of the qualities desired on the world market. Farmers are able to choose where they sell their coffee.

With these developments, it may be fair to ask where a competition auction program fits in. The eCafé Foundation has laid out three values for coffees in this new auction: traceability, sustainability, and quality.

It is possible to trace every lot in this auction back to the primary cooperative that produced it. It is also possible for the farmers to know who has purchased the coffee. This also enables transparency in the supply chain. Anybody can find out how much the auction winners pay for these lots and it is possible to follow the money back to the cooperatives.

Coffees in the competition must also be grown sustainably. Many of these have organic or Fair Trade certifications.

Finally, the coffees that pass through the competition and are allowed into the auction must be of exemplary quality and without defect. I was to join fifteen other cuppers from Ethiopia, the Netherlands, Panama, and the United States of America to cup the 66 coffees that made it past the preselection stage of the competition and to cup the 34 highest ranked of these one more time. By the end of the competition, the international panel of judges had tried 32 cups of each of the winning coffees. A defect in any of these or in the preselection cupping would immediately disqualify that coffee. This competition offered fantastic variety in both the character and quality of coffees on the cupping table and the coffees going to the auction truly are coffees of exceptional quality.

By offering this auction conducted on an Internet auction platform with coffees that have these three values, it is possible to connect the producers of these wonderful coffees with buyers who are willing to pay for that level of quality. Interested buyers will be able to sample these coffees before the auction to verify the findings of the judges and decide on their level of interest.

I arrived in Ethiopia evening, February 18 after spending about a day in either an airport or an airplane. These flights at least kept food and drink coming and the day was uneventful. I would later notice that the international terminal seems like a much nicer place on the way out of Ethiopia than on the way in.

I was free on the 19th to do as I please so I spent a lot of time randomly wandering Addis. This is a city that offers the conveniences and indulgences of a modern city jammed together with shacks fallen into disrepair, or perhaps built that way, and many structures between those examples.

The competition started on the 20th and the itinerary for the competition days were all fairly similar. It started with breakfast at the hotel. Some days this was called a Continental breakfast and on others it was the more expensive American breakfast which offered an identical choice of food. I didn't worry much about this as it was being paid for by ACDI/VOCA. Later in the morning, the foreign judges (that is, those of us who weren't Ethiopian) gathered in the hotel lobby and took a bus to the Coffee Liquoring Unit (the CLU). Once there we would cup a set of coffees, each one identified only by a random number. With sixteen judges, we were arranged four each to four tables and four cups of each coffee on each table. This allowed each judge to properly evaluate the aroma of the coffee and provided four cups for each judge to use in evaluating the other scored characteristics of the coffees. We were also free to try the cups at other tables and this was common, especially for those coffees that were particularly interesting or those that seemed suspect. Once the coffee was cold, we discussed the coffees we had just cupped. These discussions were often lively with vivid, highly detailed descriptions presented. After this discussion there would usually be another round of cupping and discussion.

Once the morning cupping was finished we had lunch, or rather we tried to have lunch. That did not always work out. Once some of the orders were taken incorrectly and my food did not arrive until everyone else was nearly finished. The service had been generally slow so while the food was good, I had a rather light lunch that day.

After lunch there would be another round of cupping and discussion followed by a return to the hotel. Evening activities were varied and included dinners, a cocktail party, and a sampling of the Addis nightlife.

On the day after the competition finals, there was an award ceremony where the winning coffees were announced and certificates were presented to representatives from the cooperative unions.

With the competition finished, some judges stayed in Addis on other business, some went home, and the rest of us started travelling in other parts of Ethiopia. We drove south to Awasa which served as a base for trips to cooperatives that ranked highly in Yirgacheffe and Sidamo. We went back to Addis and three of us flew to Jimma. From Jimma we drove to a plantation in Kafa. Then it was back to Jimma to catch the return flight to Addis. Once I had collected my bags, I walked from the domestic terminal of the Addis airport to the international terminal. This was in a completely different building and I must have seemed confused or suspicious as I was stopped three times during the short walk by armed guards.

My trip to Ethiopia was a lot of fun. I was able to cup a lot of really interesting coffees and meet a lot of interesting people. In the near future, samples of the top ranked coffees from the competition will become available to companies interested in buying them. Once there has been a chance to market the event, the online auction will take place.

—Neal Wilson, written April, 2006.

Update: March 31, 2007

At auction we placed the highest bid for a dry processed Yirgacheffe from Konga cooperative. This was the second highest winning bid in the auction, and the highest winning bid placed by an American company. This coffee is now available for sale.