Three seasons with Koke

Yirgacheffe sits in southern Ethiopia, in the Gedeo zone, at elevations between 1,800 and 2,200 meters. The first time we cupped coffee from the Koke washing station, in 2022, our head roaster put down her spoon and said: "This is the most floral cup I've had in years."

We've bought from Koke every harvest since.

The cooperative is made up of about 750 smallholder farmers, most of whom own less than one hectare of land. Coffee in this region is intercropped with shade trees, fruit, and root vegetables — a small farm produces food for the family and a cash crop in the same plot. The farmers deliver their cherry to the central washing station, where it's depulped, fermented for ~72 hours, washed, and then dried on raised African beds for 12-15 days.

The result is a coffee that tastes like the place: bright bergamot, jasmine, white peach, with a long sweet finish.

We pay Koke roughly 2.4x the local "C-market" price (the global commodity benchmark) for our lots. That premium goes to the farmers. We've watched them invest in better processing equipment, expand their drying patio capacity, and build out two new schools for cooperative members' kids.

That's what direct-trade actually looks like, beyond the marketing copy.