Ethiopia Sidamo

In 2008 Ethiopia began the centralization of all coffee exports through the newly established Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX). This eliminated most roasters? and importers? ability to provide accurate information of the precise traceability of coffees. Until December of that same year, growers could also sell direct to export markets, but this was subsequently reigned in. Since that time, the difficulty of determining precise provenance in Ethiopia ? a corner stone of specialty coffee ? has been a tremendous frustration to buyers in consuming markets.
Today, around 90 percent of coffees move through the ECX and are cupped according to profile then graded and marked generically for export. G1 lots, such as this one, are the highest grade and are in limited supply. When purchased through the ECX, however, the only traceability information given even to these highly sought after lots is the area code of production, such as ?Sidamo? or ?Yirgacheffe?, which are coffee producing regions, or Chelelektu, Yirgacheffe, which denotes that this coffee comes, generally, from the town of Chelelektu and its surrounds in the Yirgacheffe producing region.