Washed Ethiopia Info

ETHIOPIA Washed AGARO KEDAMAI COOP

(Photo Credit: sweetmarias.com)
(Pictured: A washing station for green coffee)

(From coffeeshrub.com)

Kedamai cooperative is located in the Agaro region of Western Ethiopia, organized by locals in this particular Woreda with the express purpose of building a wet mill to serve the farmers in the area (also, often spelled "Kedemai"). Between a loan from a local coop bank, and earnest money the 180 farm members pulled together, they were able to get enough cash to build out the Kedamai washing station infrastructure including a Penagos 2500 coffee depulper. In their first year they expected to produce roughly 700 bags of coffee, and have continually exceeded expectations. Five years ago, when they were the new kid on the block, so to speak, they received lots of training from more established mills nearby on things like operating their depulper, grading coffee cherry, and general management of the workflow at the station site. We noticed the water for processing is very clean because they are taking it from a stream above the washing station, not from the river below. This year's coffee is right up there with the best from the West, and has some of the delicious stone fruit cup flavors that we often talk about being unique to coffees from this region.

We use a Fellow Ode Grinder and V60 brewer for this method. If you use another brewer check out our brewing guide!

We recommend you find your baseline of what most coffee's taste good to you at that specific grind setting, ratio, etc. On our Fellow Ode Grinder we usually grind our pour overs at 2.0 on this specific grinder. This coffee called for grinding at 2.0. So whatever your normal base line is, we recommend trying this coffee at that level.
We use a 1:14 ratio of coffee to water, meaning we grind 25.7 grams of coffee to 360 grams of water. (12 oz worth of coffee)

Boil water to 199 degrees, prewet filter then dump excess water into sink.
Fill V6O with coffee (make sure all coffee is level) then start timer. Pour water in a circular motion from center to outside till you reach 50 grams. Wait 30 seconds.
Pour in the center of the brewer with a steady flowrate every 50 grams then pause for about 5 seconds. Repeat this step (pouring in the middle of the coffee bed) till you reach 300 grams.
Once you reach 300 grams, you want to be around the 1 minute 45 second mark. This last pour will be another circular pour from the middle of the coffee bed to the outside edge for 60 grams, breaking that top "crust" apart, reaching your final 360 grams. Swirl the brewer once to get all coffee off the sides of the brewer.
That's it! Once the dripper finally stops, you want to be anywhere around the 2 minute 35 second mark to 3 minutes and 5 seconds. If you finish before that, try fining up the grind, alternatively if you finish longer than that, coarsen the grind.

(This video is of coffee grown in Peru, but the processing remains almost the same in every coffee growing region)

Here's a short video on how coffee comes from the farmers all over the world to your cup!