Coffee spread to the highland areas of Sidamo where the trees are newer. In my home area, the trees can be 65-85 years old. Trees this mature no longer produce good, flavoursome coffee but farmers have been resistant to replanting due to the perceived interruption in their income. On a side note, in response to this issue Kerchanshe now runs a range of ...
Gomma Woreda is one of the pioneer coffees growing areas in Ethiopia. According to the oral tradition, coffee cultivation was started in Gomma around 1870's and spread to the rest of the then Gibe states
Gomma District is located 397 km Southwest of Addis Ababa and about 50 km west of Jimma town. The annual rainfall of the area is about 1400 mm, while the mean minimum and maximum annual temperatures of the Woreda 10oC and 25oC, respectively. The altitude of the district ranges between 1387-2870 masl. Kerchanshe trading PLC owns processing units at Beshasha and Agaor towns of the District.
As early coffee domestication is believed to start here there is a significant volume of heirloom coffee but also mixed with the mew varieties of 4110 and 74112. The coffee is known for its perfect smoothness and balance; also fruity(peach) and floral notes are significant. This coffee is thought to be the variety closest in flavor to the original wild plant.
The processing is done in 2 ways; Natural And Washed Coffee Processing.
Jimma beshasha processing site has own dry mill and has a capacity to produce per 15 Bags/hour Cherries are hand-sorted from unripe and overripe cherries before they go into floatation tanks, where the cherries are covered with water. Any cherries that float are removed. Whole, ripe cherries are then dried in the sunshine on raised African drying beds, which are laid out on hessian cloths for about 15–18 days depending on the weather conditions. The cherries are covered with plastic or shade nets during the midday heat and at night.
Jimma Beshasha Processing Site has its own wet mill and has a capacity to produce 30Bags/hour. Each day, red cherry collected from farmers are carefully hand-picked coffee cherries are delivered to the jimma beshasha wet mill and are hand-sorted prior to processing to remove unripe, overripe, or damaged fruit, in order to enhance the quality and sweetness of the cup.The coffee cherries are then pulped to remove the fruit and skin, and then graded by weight; heavier beans are superior quality and deliver a sweeter cup.