Birhanu Teklu Maribo - Ethiopia 2021

Berhanu has been farming coffee since 2005 and he started it as a family business on a small piece of land in Ararso kebele, Kokosa woreda in the West Arsi zone of the Oromia region. “Nobody tried to grow coffee in this area. I was the first to successfully introduce coffee,” says Berhanu. Located on an altitude of 1958-2130 meters above sea level, today he grows the 74158 and 74110 varieties of coffee on 11 hectares of land, and this year he has collected his largest harvest of 27,000 kilograms. Berhanu has set up his washing station and processes his coffee mostly into washed coffee and in lesser volume into natural coffee. His main market is the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange and coffee exporters. He participated in the 2020 Cup of Excellence competition and came out fourth which helped him to set up international market linkages and, “This year I have sold a limited portion of my harvest – my specialty coffee - to a coffee company in Germany, for a very good price,” he says.