Ethiopian Coffees, Coops and Exchanges

A customer came in this week to investigate our newest offering, an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe organic. The customer was a bit confused as another coffee purveyor had explained that regional varieties had all but disappeared from the market place with the institution of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), run by the Ethiopian government which controls much of the coffee exported into the world market. By doing this, the government all but did away with many of the fine exceptional micro lots that many small green distributors and micro roasters in the US and Canada had been buying in small quantities and marketing to you (the drinkers) and me the roasters. It's all now centrally processed by the ECX. As a side note, one of the first steps the Ethiopian government took in gaining control over their most precisous export was trademarking Yirgacheffe (and all its various spellings) to better charge a premium on this coffee. This happened a full two years before the ECX was instituted. The intent of the trademark as well as the formation of the ECX is to trickle down and distribute the profits to all involved in the chain of that coffees life. We'll save that for another day...

So, how i s it that small micro roasters, like me, are still able to get some exceptional coffees like natural organic Yirgacheffe and Sidamo that are not traded on the EXC? In simple terms, many of the well established coffee co-ops that have been operating in Ethiopia for many years were exempt from the ECX and are still functioning quite well. Moredocofe, Oromia, Koke, Shakiso and others still pool their regional coffees through the coops and sell directly to green buyers at the Addis Ababa coffee auctions. In addition, late last year, the ECX announced that a Direct Specialty Auction would be held this past February in which 45 select coffees were offered that linked buyers directly with specific farms with 85% of the profits going directly to the farmer.

So, when you come into Mighty Good Coffee Cafe and see both a Sidamo and a Yirgacheffe offered, they really are what we say they are.