This coffee comes from the Chelchele washing station, which is in the kebele, or village, of Chelchele, in the words, or district, of Kochere, in the Yirgacheffe region. Chelchele coffees tend to have a nice backbone of sweetness from toffee and/or soft nuts like almond, with a floral and citrus overtone.
Coffees in Ethiopia are typically grown on very small plots of land by farmers who also grow other crops. The majority of smallholders will deliver their coffee in cherry to a nearby washing station or central processing unit, where their coffee will be sorted, weighed, and paid for or given a receipt. Coffee is then processed, usually washed or natural, by the washing station and dried on raised beds.
The washing stations serve as many as several hundred to sometimes a thousand or more producers, who deliver cherry throughout the harvest season: The blending of these cherries into day lots makes it virtually impossible under normal circumstances to know precisely whose coffee winds up in which bags on what day, making traceability to the producer difficult.
Typically farmers in this region don't have access to and therefore do not utilize fertilizers or pesticides in the production of coffee.
The process of producing Washed coffees in Ethiopia will vary slightly from washing station to washing station, but generally speaking the coffee is picked ripe and is depulped the same day. There is usually a fermentation period of 8–12 hours in open-air tanks, then washed in water channels to remove the mucilage. The coffee seeds will be spread on raised beds to dry for 5–15 days, depending on the weather.
