Coffee Factory Tour

What are the odds? Only a few hundred meters from our house is a coffee processing, roasting and export factory. Apparently, the Robera Private Limited Company has been working over the past year or so to expand its operations to include more international business. They have been teasing us with a potential coffee shop since January and this past week we saw open doors and people moving. This was enough to prompt an investigation, I stopped by to see what was going on. They said that they were not yet "officially" open, but were selling roasted beans from three different Ethiopian regions (Sodammo, Lekempti and Yergge Cheffe) and one custom Robera blend. It so happened that the man I was speaking to was Mr. Abraham Teressa, the General Manager of the factory. After a discussion of our intense love of coffee and my food chemist background he invited me to the QA lab on Sunday morning for a coffee tasting! I then bought half a kilo of the three regional coffees to take home and experiment with on my own. About 20 minutes later I was back to the store to buy a full kilo (2.2 lbs) of each of the three to send to Courtney. They were packed and on the plane to the States just a few hours later.

Saturday morning arrived and about 9:30, just as I was on my way to the market for our weekly grocery shopping run, Abraham called me on my mobile phone to remind me of the tasting. Apparently Sunday and Saturday were two English words he was still working on because he was doing the tasting right then! I had Wuhib stop the truck, got out and quickly headed back to the factory. As I was walking there I stopped by and invited Marcus and Ralph to go as well. Once on the premises, the luscious aroma of roasting beans drew us upstairs to the QA lab where Abraham (in the tan jacket) and five others were awaiting our arrival, a couple of technicians, the Marketing Manager, Facilities Manager and the Master Blender himself, a man with over 40 years experience in roasting and blending Ethiopian coffees. He took us to the tasting area where there were 4 cups each of all four coffee types in both a medium roast and a dark roast, 32 cups in all. Now we love coffee, but we didn't think we loved it THAT much!

Coffee tasting is kind of like wine tasting. It is about the tasting, not the drinking. We each received a big spoon to sip from each of the varieties and roasts to determine our preferences and to see the difference between regions and processing. What a delectable experience. Ethiopia is the original homeland of Coffee arabica, and produces top quality Arabica coffee as the country's #1 export. Coffee is produced in large quantities in different parts of the country. Kaffa, which has given coffee its name, is one of them. Ethiopia, more than any other country in the world, has a broad genetic diversity among its Arabica coffee varieties, especially in terms of its exquisitive aroma and flavour. As a result, nine different bean varieties are cultivated in the various coffee-growing areas of the country all with distinctive tastes, sizes, shapes and colours. From the subtle difference between regions to the tremendous difference between roasts to the incredible taste of warm coffee beans dropped fresh from the roaster. Wow! Just wow!

They insisted on then giving a tour of the factory. They receive tons of green coffee beans from 9 different regions in Ethiopia. These are then blended (when desired), screened, cleaned, and hand sorted to be bagged in 50 kg burlap bags for shipping worldwide. Their goal is to ship 9,600 tons this year. They produce both washed varieties ( Tepi, Sidamo, Wollega, Gambela, Yirgachafe, and Limu) and natural sun-dried varieties (Nekemte, Djimma, Borena, Illubabor, Gedao and Bale). Abraham told me that he would gladly sell me a container of coffee (300 bags at 50kg each about 33,000 lbs) and ship it to the US.

The next stop was back to the coffee shop where they brewed up fresh cups of the pure Yirga Chaffe variety. Thick, rich, sweet, aromatic, and simply wonderful tasting, straight up. No milk, sugar or anything else added. I am afraid we have all been spoiled now. There is no way that even the mighty Starbucks can compare to this wonderful drink. It is truly the taste that sells and there is nothing else like it.

Now for the good part. The 3 kg I bought and sent home, 6.6 lbs of solid ambrosia, cost 138 Birr... about $14 and thats roasted retail price. If Starbucks even had something this good it would easily cost over 100 bucks. Robera is now considered a friend and a neighbor to us. We officially adopted their store as "Our Coffee Shop" and in only 8 more days it will be our official hangout. Wish you were here to share it!