Ethiopia Okoluu

While Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, it maintains its position in today’s specialty coffee scene mainly thanks to the vast array of flavors it has to offer. Okoluu is a good example of this—behind this coffee is a group of 33 farmers organized around the washing station of the same name in the Guji region. They farm on plots of about two hectares, at an elevation of 2,000 to 2,150 meters above sea level—a considerable altitude even by Ethiopian standards. The coffee trees here are relatively young—between one and seven years old—and the farmers are gradually transitioning to more resilient and higher-yielding varieties that help them improve both quality and productivity. Farming in Guji remains traditional.

Farmers commonly grow coffee in combination with other food crops—a practice known as intercropping, which makes sense for smallholder farmers in two ways: it maximizes the use of available land while also providing for their families. The result is a naturally processed coffee with sweet notes of strawberries and cream, nicely balanced by a fresh, lime-like acidity. Fjord roasts it to an espresso profile, so the sweetness comes to the forefront and the fruitiness remains distinct even under pressure.