Guji

Guji comes from producer Tesfaye Bekele and comes to us certified organic. Collected from dozens of micro-producer smallholders in the Suke Quto community of the Guji region. 

 Tesfaye was working for Natural Resource and Environmental Protection for the government of Ethiopia. After devastating wildfires that destroyed huge sections of Tesfaye's native Guji region in the late 1990s, he was looking for a way to provide livelihoods for the local people that would support them, without leading to more environmental devastation. 

“I came with the idea to replant the forests and also add coffee trees to enhance diversity. The local community agreed to my proposal and they asked me to provide the coffee seedlings.”

Tesfaye distributed large amounts of coffee seedlings among the community. He rented a big truck and started to divide this evenly. “People started to ask me how long it would take before this crop starts to yield cherries. I answered, ‘four to five years’, they gave the seedlings back to me after hearing this”. Disappointed by the lack of faith among his community, Tesfaye reserved a piece of land. Upon this small plot, he started a coffee seedling nursery with government money. Tesfaye wanted to prove that his idea to preserve Guji’s forest was the best alternative for the Guji people.

Tesfaye appointed several managers to overlook his nurturing ground, but all found the job not appealing because of years without tangible results. He could not find eager people, so he resigned from his job and became a coffee farmer. After his first harvest, the community, that first rejected the idea, returned to Tesfaye. “First, they run away, but later they came back and asked me to provide coffee seedlings. I am very proud of this idea because all the farms you see today in Guji are inspired by the Suke Quto Farm.”

Suke Quto Farm is stretched out over the high lands and valleys of the Odo Shakisso woreda. The volcanic soil found on the farm is very fertile. Tesfaye keeps the soil in shape by organic recycling through litterfall, root residue from coffee and shade trees. Suke Quto coffees are all Organic and Rainforest Alliance certified.

We've been buying Tesfaye's coffee for five years now, and had the opportunity to meet with him in person and hear the story of how he got where he is and where he plans to take the project in the future. This is community-created coffee created in a way that serves both the present and the future.