Haru Ethiopia. Heirloom. Washed.

Every bean has a story


Across the landscape of the Woreda Haru, wild coffee trees grow and are picked and processed to
provide a great proportion of income for the local people. So much of this area revolves around
coffee, as the planted trees covers over 50 square kilometres of the landscape.

The total landscape around this area includes approximately 20% fertile land for cultivation of crops,
including coffee, with another 20% of the land being covered in swamps and marshes. The washing
stations here were one of the first sites in Ethiopia for Project Origin to implement the Carbonic Maceration techniques, and through some initial testing there, they have been able to shift these
techniques onto many other washing stations to produce unique and special coffees.

Project Origin

The story of Sasa Sestic begins long before winning the title of World Barista Champion 2015. From humble beginnings in war-torn Bosnia, Sasa’s family immigrated to Australia in 1997. Driven by a love of sport, Sasa competed for Australia in European Handball in the Sydney Olympics in 2000. However, it wasn’t until he started making coffee in a bakery in Canberra that Sasa’s true passion was realised.

While immersed in the café culture, Sasa’s obsession with coffee and his passion for quality led him to begin roasting coffee beans in a garage, attempting to learn everything about coffee and how to perfect it as a drink. This obsession would soon change his life and the world of specialty coffee. He founded Project Origin, an ethical green bean trading company that establishes long-term and mutually rewarding relationships with more than 100 growers in developing coffee producing countries.

Through Project Origin, Sasa introduced in specialty coffee Carbonic Maceration and Supernatural processing methods. The Project Origin Community Fund has allocated money towards projects that build daycare centres, infrastructure, drying beds, green coffee processing and fermentation facilities and more.

Processing

This coffee grows in small-holder farmers’ backyards (known as ‘garden coffee’) in the Yirgacheffe region. The team harvests cherries from October to February and takes them to the washing station where they combine small holder lots.

They then depulp the coffee and separate floaters before putting them into large tanks for fermentation. After fermentation, they rinse coffee beans thoroughly in channels to remove the last bits of mucilage and further separate any floaters. Finally, they move coffee beans to African beds in the sun to dry for 10-15 days until moisture level reaches 10-12%.

On very hot days, when coffee beans are on raised beds, they may cover them in plastic to control
the rate of drying. Then, they store dried beans in parchment for protection until milling and export preparation. Project Origin's local partner, Primrose, does further quality control and sorting during milling. As a minimum, they do a triple-pass through a color sorter and a triple-pass through hand sorting tables to improve overall quality.

If you enjoy coffees from Ethiopia, we have you covered! We currently have three Ethiopian coffees, including our other Heirloom coffee, Diima Danche.