About Yabitu Koba #3
Yabitu Koba comes to us from Guji’s Uraga district in Ethiopia’s Oromia region. Oromia is the largest region of Ethiopia, home to more than 30 million people. Guji is one of the oldest coffee-growing areas in Ethiopia. Koba (Oromiffa for the prevalent native false banana tree) is a remote kebele (town) that’s difficult to access, especially during the rainy season.
To get to Koba, we first have to fly to Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, then take a local flight to the city of Hawassa. From Hawassa, it’s another 5 hours’ drive.
Koba houses a processing center where local producers drop off their cherry, which they transport from their farms via horse, mule, or donkey. The farms are between 30 and 90 minutes away along dirt roads that become muddy and hazardous during the rainy season.
Local rainy seasons used to last only a few months per year, but due to climate change they’ve now extended to cover almost the entire year. This shift complicates all forms of work and especially transport during the harvest season, which lasts from December to February. Producers take advantage of sunny days to harvest and transport as much coffee as they can, but those days are becoming increasingly scarce.
Koba’s producers intercrop using false banana trees, maize, Korch, Wanza, and Sesa for shade, selecting based on the age of the coffee plant and its other needs. Their soil is a highly fertile sandy loam with good water retention and drainage. It’s self-sufficient with proper planting practices and doesn’t require fertilizer to produce spectacular quality.
The farmers of Koba belong to the Oromo people and speak Oromiffa. They maintain certain ancestral customs and have a quiet lifestyle built almost entirely around coffee farming. Many families here struggle with lack of electricity and drinking-water access. Children in the area usually don’t start going to school until age 9 because they have to travel long distances to get to the nearest school. Due to this education gap, the majority of young people in the area end up dedicating themselves to agriculture: growing potatoes, coffee, maize, or false banana trees on their parents’ or neighbors’ farms.
Despite the difficulties life brings in Koba, the producers here are recognized by the specialty coffee world for their great dedication, ancestral coffee wisdom, and phenomenal quality.
