The Mystery About Heirloom Coffee

The word "heirloom" represents an ancient plant variety that was originally planted for food. Some people define a variety that is more than 100 years old to be called an heirloom. Others say it is 50 years old. Then some people defined the varieties that existed before 1945 as heirlooms, which was about the time when hybrids began to appear; Or 1951 when hybrids became more widespread.

In the coffee industry, you will find that the term "heirloom" applies to the varieties introduced into South America and Asia more than 100 years ago, as well as to many coffee varieties in Africa, especially those from Ethiopia.

Getu Bekele, East African supply chain manager of counter culture coffee in the United States, is committed to establishing an index of Ethiopian coffee varieties. He said that in Ethiopia, the word heirloom came into being after the beginning of the fine coffee movement. At that time, these buyers of fine coffee who could not distinguish the difference between tebica and Bourbon would collectively refer to all these unknown varieties as heirlooms.

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However, Getu said that Ethiopian coffee producers will use different names to distinguish different coffee trees. They usually do not use globally recognized scientific names to address these varieties, but use local vocabulary, and may also use some characteristics of local coffee trees to address a certain variety of coffee trees.

Medina Hussein, the export department manager of DW coffee, a coffee exporter, is also a supplier of Ethiopian coffee. He said that fine coffee buyers would distinguish Ethiopian coffee by production area, altitude, and cup test score, rather than by product type.

In a broad sense, Ethiopian coffee varieties can be divided into two categories: jarc varieties and regional local varieties.

Jarc variety is a variety matched by Jima agricultural research center. It is an organization of the Ethiopian agricultural federal research center, which is mainly set up to study pest resistance and improve yield. There are about 40 varieties in it. Regional landraces are wild varieties that grow in the wild of Ethiopia. Getu says there may be more than 10000 wild species.

This means that when consumers buy a bag of sobia coffee and see the bean bag marked with heirloom, the coffee may be combined from more than 10000 varieties.

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What if the buyer does not want to use the generic name of the heirloom, but requires to purchase a variety with a specific name? There is a view that this will help to communicate varieties with a common name in Ethiopia and help us understand the sequence of varieties.

If you look at the map of Ethiopian coffee varieties produced by Kiburi, Sinde, Bedessa, and Ywan of counter culture, all regional local varieties from the West and southwest of Ethiopia have different characteristics, flavors, and tastes

If you tell a farmer to produce only western and southwest local varieties, he will mix these different varieties to produce the flavor of the mixed varieties.

Therefore, identifying and selling specific varieties can more accurately meet the needs of buyers and purchase coffee according to their desired flavor characteristics.

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Getu asked the producers in the Guji production area to start distinguishing production batches. When the harvest was over that day, we found that Kurume, a local variety, was an amazing variety, which could improve the overall flavor quality of the coffee produced in this area.

He hopes that by identifying specific varieties and selling them, small farmers can make a better income from their crops.

The use of various names may help farmers in other ways. If you only know heirlooms when you plant coffee in a large area of farmland, you may find that these varieties have poor resistance to diseases and pests after you invest a lot in planting varieties. If the variety name is used, farmers can estimate the risk when selecting the varieties to be planted.

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The word heirloom may be too general, but there are still some advantages to using it.

First of all, it is also problematic to name each variety one by one, because the same variety is not often found in different regions. Getu explained, "if you plant a variety in haararge and the same variety in yegacheffe, you will not get the same planting potential and the same flavor quality."

This means that the varieties planted in different production areas have different characteristics, so it may be confusing to call this variety by the same name.

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If the buyer takes time to familiarize himself with all the varieties in Guji, he may find that when viewing the completely different varieties in haararge, the various information of Guji is not helpful, which makes it very difficult for a single buyer to understand the various coffee varieties in Ethiopia.

Another challenge is those producers are used to mixing varieties at harvest time and selling the harvested coffee simply as an heirloom. Therefore, if you only want buyers of regional local varieties, it may be difficult to buy the varieties they want.

Medina said that if a buyer asks him to purchase regional varieties in a specific region, he may only provide 50 bags or 100 bags, and there may be no more. He also needs potential buyers to inform him of such needs before the harvest, so as to ensure that the varieties of the harvest will not be mixed together to meet the needs of buyers.

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This is also related to the following facts because many farmers in Ethiopia are small-scale farmers who grow coffee as a cash crop. They choose the varieties according to whether they have disease resistance and high yield, and the quality of flavor is the second consideration.

Heleanna georgalis, the boss of moplaco, is also an exporter of raw beans. He said that if the bean roaster wanted to cooperate with farmers to conduct experiments on specific coffee varieties, both sides would be very troubled. A small farmer with only 0.01 hectares of land would not want to sell you only 10 kilograms of raw beans. And the bean roaster is not willing to pay a high price of $200 per kilogram to invite farmers to plant a certain variety.

Therefore, although it may seem illogical to combine thousands of varieties under a general term, it makes sense in the context of Ethiopian infrastructure.

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Jarc has been committed to recording the genes of different coffee varieties, and some buyers are also cooperating to develop a common language suitable for communicating these varieties.

However, there is still a long way to go to record each variety and reach a consensus on the reference materials of each variety. It will take a long time to achieve full transparency in Ethiopia.

Getu Bekele saw a bright future in Ethiopia coffee. In the next ten years, we all look forward to high-quality and delicious coffee from all over Ethiopia.

If the consumer asks the store to provide more details about the varieties of Ethiopian coffee, the bean roaster may turn to ask the raw bean dealer what kinds of heirlooms are mixed from. The transparency of information can spread to the whole supply chain so that all roles in the supply chain benefit from the source to the end.

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