Ayla, Ethiopia — September 2024

SEPTEMBER SUBSCRIPTION

Another Ethiopian coffee season is upon us! This month we're showcasing a coffee we buy every year:

Ayla, Ethiopia

For this month's email, I want to focus on the coffee's supplier/exporter, Testi. Testi is a family-owned business that also owns many washing stations, including Ayla. We will be working more directly with them to bring in our next round of Ethiopian coffees, set to land in October. Testi owns some of the best washing stations across Ethiopia, which gives them direct access and control over the whole process. They are also dedicated to community impact projects, such as building schools, electrical infrastructure, and freshwater access. The dedication towards this working style makes it an easy choice when it comes to deciding "who do we buy from?"

While their primary role at the dry mill is to separate, grade, and mill the coffee into an exportable product, their attentive care starts long before then. Coffee from Ethiopia is grown primarily by smallholder farms and then brought to a washing station individually, or via small local co-operatives, that collect and pay for the cherries. Testi's washing stations help in establishing the initial building blocks of quality and maintaining the high standard of the raw coffee cherries delivered. It is in the many hands and stages that the coffee quality can drop, and the best way to track the process is through quality control monitors and relationship building. This is where Testi shines — their understanding of all the moving parts means that prior to the coffee arriving at the dry mill, their washing stations' managers and quality control monitors have integrated a consistent quality standard, giving each coffee a more predictable outcome. It is the monitoring of how it has been treated along the way that makes Testi's quality a notch above the other Ethiopian suppliers.

Buying coffee can be very tricky, especially in coffee markets like Ethiopia where the government is involved, international interest is high, and a diverse group of local operators are all trying to make money. While we are only concerned about the highest quality coffees, the majority of the coffee exported out of Ethiopia is just for commercial, non-specialty purposes. We, at Made of Many, have to choose our relationships wisely and ensure that our values align.

I hope this helps give a bit more context and understanding around the inner workings of a coffee supplier in one of our favourite origins to buy from — Ethiopia.

Kindest regards,
Ben