Alo Coffee Special Washed Ethiopia

This is the first time our team has sourced directly for Ethiopian coffees and we are honored to feature none other than Alo Coffee.

Alo Coffee was started by Tamiru Tadesse in 2020, as a means to showcase the high quality coffees from the smallholder farmers in his hometown, and bring it to the rest of the world.

Alo Village is the site of the company’s processing headquarters where the coffee growers in the vicinity bring their coffee cherries for post-harvest processing. It is located at a high elevation of around 2,400 masl, which results in dense but sweet and flavorful coffees.

Tamiru’s coffees feature 74158 varietals, which is a variety developed and promoted by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC), to improve the productivity of smallholder coffee farmers in Ethiopia. There are 40 over JARC varietals and they commonly have higher resistance and adaptability to a wide range of environmental phenomenon.

As a testament to Tamiru’s dedication and the hardwork of the community at Alo Village, he managed to achieve 1st Place at the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence in 2021 with an anaerobic natural coffee, only 1 year into establishing Alo Coffee.

Tamiru is not only skilled at producing naturals, but his innovative processing techniques shine in his washed coffees as well. We visited Tamiru in February this year and picked this ‘special’ washed lot. This process is special as Tamiru adopts a different, yet simple approach of fermentation.

After collecting perfectly ripe cherries into barrels, they are sealed and laid down on their side instead of traditionally upright, to create a more even fermentation. The barrels are fermented in this state for 3 days. After fermentation, the cherries are depulped and dried as very thin layers on raised beds, so as to prevent further microbial activity as the coffees had already gone through the necessary fermentation in the barrels earlier.

We enjoy this coffee for its silky texture, delicate notes of peach, jasmine and juicy crisp acidity reminding us of apples.