Ethiopia - Koke Honey

The Koke Washing Station sits on a large hill, with dozens of farms growing coffee both above and below the facility. For the last three years Koke’s managers have separated out higher and lower elevation coffees in an effort to ensure that only the best coffee is being sold to members of the specialty coffee community.

At Koke, honey processing begins by drying coffee cherries with their fruit in tact for a period of no less than two days. The cherries are then de-pulped (their outer layers of fruit are removed) and the coffee is placed onto any number of the facility’s 89 raised drying beds for 18 to 21 days.

As the coffee dries, the remaining fragments of fruit will begin to ferment, increasing the coffees’ natural sweetness, complexity, and fruitful characteristics. The staff at Koke carefully monitors the speed at which the coffee is drying, in order to preventing moisture from being lost too quickly, in an effort to preserve the coffee’s flavor profile.