Coffee Story
This year's Holiday blend combines Uganda Makali, a vibrant and creamy washed coffee, with a layered, sweet, fruit-forward, naturally processed coffee from the Uraga region in Guji, Ethiopia.
Uganda Makali
The Makali Community is situated on the southern slope of Mount Elgon. It's named after the community's cliffside setting and signifies the progress and determination of growing coffee in such a rugged terrain. With the help of three producer leaders and our importing partner, Mountain Harvest, the Makali farmers have access to a drying shed, pulping facility, and clean water for coffee processing. Some farmers in the Makali Community have been using a pulping and drying facility provided by Mountain Harvest and received training and support to learn this processing stage and produce high-quality parchment. The decision to process the coffee themselves instead of selling the cherry to be processed stems from the fact that having processed parchment provides tangible savings for the farmers' families. This is a primary impact focus for Mountain Harvest's work in the region to build resilient supply chains and empower farmers to become experts in farm-based businesses.
This specific organic-certified lot is grown at 1700 MASL by 140 smallholder farmers as part of the Makali Community on the southern slope of Mount Elgon. It is a washed, processed, mixed variety of Nyasland, SL-14, and SL-28.
Ethiopia Mayole Natural
Grown by smallholder farmers in the Dida Hora kebele, in the Uraga woreda of the Guji zone, this naturally processed coffee is comprised of heirloom varieties of Gibirinna 74110 & Serto 74112 that the smallholder farmers themselves have processed and then brought to the local Dida Hore drying station for final processing. The Dida Hore station is owned and operated by Sookoo Coffee and Mayole Coffee Owner Ture Waji. Ture grew up in the region and had strong connections to the land, its community and farmers. Between harvests, Ture and his team educate farmers on good agricultural practices to help improve the quality of their cherries. His company also provides pre-harvest loans to farmers who need them to pay for things like hired labour to do maintenance on the farm, such as weeding and planting. He started Mayole Coffee to work alongside Sookoo and broaden the scope of coffee sourced through vertical integrations to include more coffee processed at farmers' homes and expanding its reach to source coffee from additional areas such as Haro Wolabo, Hambella, and Anna Sora.
