About This Coffee
Tarekech Werash is a dedicated female coffee producer who collaborates with Sucafina through the Lalisaa Project. She established her farm in 1990 alongside her husband, Fikadu, and has since cultivated a profound pride in her coffee. Tarekech firmly believes that anyone who tastes her coffee will instantly fall in love with its rich flavor.
As a participant in the Lalisaa Project, her primary objective is to secure a more consistent demand for her coffee and achieve better prices. With the increased income, she hopes to support the hardworking individuals who contribute to her farm’s success.
Through the Lalisaa Project, Tarekech benefits from agronomy support provided by Sucafina Ethiopia, which includes access to training sessions that enhance her skills in cultivation, harvesting, and processing. Her unwavering commitment to high-quality production, coupled with her participation in the project, empowers her to access better markets and improve her earnings.
Designed to uplift smallholder farmers, the Lalisaa Project streamlines the supply chain, enhances quality, and boosts yields, ultimately fostering a sustainable future for coffee producers like Tarekech.
Cultivation
On her 5-hectare farm, Tarekech embraces the principles of regenerative farming. She cultivates a diverse array of local landrace varieties, historically known as Ethiopian heirlooms, which ensures genetic diversity and resilience. This holistic approach enriches the soil and enhances biodiversity, benefiting the entire farm ecosystem.
Tarekech employs best farming practices, including pruning, stumping, and planting new coffee seedlings. The combination of high altitude and nutrient-rich soil creates an ideal environment for her coffee to thrive. However, it is her passion and dedication that truly set her coffee apart. By cultivating shade-grown coffee and producing her own compost, she eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers, fostering a more sustainable and environmentally friendly approach to farming.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Tarekesh, her husband Fikadu and their family carefully handpick only the ripest, red cherry. Cherry is sorted and then dried on raised beds made from bamboo. Cherry sundries for approximately 18 to 24 days. Cherry is frequently turned and sorted to remove damaged cherry while drying.
About Lalisaa
Lalisaa is a term used to describe something that is flourishing and growing. Our Lalisaa coffees, initiated by Sucafina staff, began with the recognition that the supply chain in Ethiopia was failing to benefit smallholder farmers or reward them for producing quality coffee.
The program encourages strong growing practices, rewards the production of quality coffee and helps farmers take control of their part of the supply chain by partnering directly with smallholders.
New farmers are onboarded each year for a training program that is intended to help farmers improve yields and quality while also accessing new markets and financial services. Farmers in the program participate in a wide range of activities including designing, and later revising, a farm management plan, accessing financing for larger farm projects and more.
Currently, Lalissa is compromised of 97 farmers located within the acclaimed coffee-producing regions of Kochere, Gedeb, Yirgacheffe, Shakiso, Bule Hora and Sidama. In addition to working with farmers to improve quality and yield, Sucafina Ethiopia is, through Lalisaa, making introductions between roasters and farmers. By bringing roasters to visit farmers and begin discussions, Lalisaa coffees are helping make connections and developing relationships between farmers and their potential clients. This will enable direct trade relationships that can benefit both farmers and roasters.
Coffee in Ethiopia
While Ethiopia is famous as coffee’s birthplace, today it remains a specialty coffee industry darling for its incredible variety of flavors. While full traceability has been difficult in recent history, new regulations have made direct purchasing possible. We’re partnering directly with farmers to help them produce top quality specialty lots that are now completely traceable, adding value for farmers and roasters, alike.
The exceptional quality of Ethiopian coffee is due to a combination of factors. The genetic diversity of coffee varieties means that we find a diversity of flavor, even between (or within) farms with similar growing conditions and processing. In addition to varieties, processing methods also contribute to end quality. The final key ingredients for excellent coffee in Ethiopia are the producing traditions that have created the genetic diversity, processing infrastructure and great coffee we enjoy today.
Most producers in Ethiopia are smallholders, and the majority continue to cultivate coffee using traditional methods. As a result, most coffee is grown with no chemical fertilizer or pesticide use. Coffee is almost entirely cultivated, harvested and dried using manual systems.