Arsosola

ORIGIN
Among coffee-producing countries, Ethiopia holds near-legendary status not only because it’s the “birthplace” of Arabica coffee, but also because it is simply unlike every other place in the coffee world. Unlike the vast majority of coffee-growing countries, the plant was not introduced as a cash crop through colonization. Instead, growing, processing, and drinking coffee is part of the everyday way of life, and has been for centuries since the trees were discovered growing wild in forests and eventually cultivated for household use and commercial sale.The majority of Ethiopia’s farmers are smallholders and sustenance farmers, with less than 1 hectare of land apiece.

Guji is a beautifully forested area in southern Ethiopia. Before the early 2000’s, this region was considered part of Sidama, but has since become its own region. The people of Guji grow coffee at high altitudes in the rich red soil of the highlands, setting this coffee’s profile apart from neighbouring regions.
 

PRODUCER
Arsosala is a washing station founded in 2015 that currently serves about 1,200 smallholder producers in the Uraga woreda of Guji. Producers deliver their coffee in cherry to the washing station where their coffee will be sorted, weighed, and paid. Coffees are picked ripe and depulped the same day, fermented overnight in tanks before being washed and dried on raised beds. It typically takes the coffee 8–15 days to dry under sun or 15–20 days in cloudy conditions.

The blending of these cherries into day lots makes it virtually impossible to make traceability back to the producer. Neither is the lot coffee traceable back to single variety, since it could be comprised of hundreds of native heirloom varieties that grow wild in Ethiopia.
 

ROAST
Proudly roasted at Olisipo under the umbrella of the Portuguese Coffee Roasters United for the World Aeropress Championship 2024, this Competition coffee was generously sponsored by our friends at Café Imports. We loved the delicate lavendar florals, dried stone-fruit sweetness and a tangy acidity that reminded us bergamot.To highlight these, we opted for a fast roast and high airflow setting, whilst allowing for time to gently develop the earl grey tea-like aromatics in the finish.