Jabanto farmers business group was established in 2018 with the help of G Broad. A total of 29 smallholder coffee farmers from the Gedeo zone founded the group in 2018 and the size of the group kept expanding over years and as of today, there are 87 registered smallholder coffee farmers in the group. The group has reached a total production volume of 288 metric tonnes of high quality natural and washed coffees. The group tries to produce different coffee types through: regional lots, village level lots, single farmer lots, variety lots and processing lots.
Single farmer lots represent the largest percentages of the product developed at Jabanto. Out of the 87 registered member farmers in the Jabanto farmers business group, those farmers who produce an outstanding coffee with superior quality and cup score are promoted as a single farmer lot.
Through our importing partner, Condesa, we pay a better and higher price for a single framer lot as compared to a composite (group) lot. We believe that rewarding farmers for quality is a good mechanism to drive quality standards and motivate farmers to produce better quality coffees year after year.
Processsing
Natural coffee which is also known as sun-dried and among Jabanto coffee farmers, known as “special coffee”, constitutes the largest coffee type produced in the Gedeo zone.
Immediately after harvesting, overripe and insect/pest damaged cherries and other defected cherries are sorted out. Then, only well-ripen red cherries remain on a raised bed (usually called African raised bed) for further drying under the sun for 18-21 days. A total of 11 Kg of red cherry per square meter is distributed on a drying bed made of Bamboo mat.
To maintain uniform drying among beans, the coffee is turned around on the bed manually six times per day. The cherry is then covered with nylon mesh and plastic during the night time. Starting the 15th day, the trend of bean moisture loss is monitored to pull the dried cherry off the bed if the coffee bean attains a moisture level between 9.5% and 10.5%. This natural coffee processing technique plus the complex interactions among soil, rainfall distribution, temperature, shade, and genetic make of the varieties play the greatest role to create the unique and high quality profiles.
Last year we brought you coffee from Birre's son, Tarkegn Gutu. This coffee is from the family's farms around the village of Tulise, Yirgacheffe and is a beautiful representation of the family's development of coffee varietals and dedication to producing and processing quality coffee lots.
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