Feature Espresso: Benti Nenka | Ethiopia

More about Benti Nenka:

This coffee is named after the village of Benti Nenka where the growers who contributed their coffee cherry to this lot are based. The village is located in the Hambela Wamena woreda within the Guji zone and this particualr coffee is processed at the Guduba processing station. The station received coffee from 589 smallholder farmers, each managing plots ranging from 1 to 2 hectares, located at high elevations of up to 2170 masl. 

Guji farmers adhere to traditional farming practices, often intercropping coffee with other food crops to maximize land use. These farms operate organically by default, with minimal reliance on fertilizers or pesticides. Most agricultural tasks, including harvesting, are performed manually due to the small scale of the farms.

The coffee cherry is hand-picked by the farmers and transported to the mill’s collection points, where it undergoes meticulous sorting and selection to remove any overripe, under-ripe, or damaged beans, ensuring excellent quality selection for further processing of speciality grade export coffees. While Benti Nenka has a cold anaerobic processing facility, this lot went straight to raised African beds where it undergoes a slow-drying process, taking 20 to 25 days in partial shade on elevated African beds until reaching a moisture content of 11%. Regular turning of the coffee ensures proper air circulation and temperature control to prevent over-fermentation and mould.

A moisture meter is used to monitor and regulate the moisture level. Once it reaches 11%, the coffee is then transported to a local warehouse, where further sorting and quality control measures are upheld to prepare the coffee for the final milling and export stage.

Sometime it happens that we run out of our planned offering at record speeds and this time we were very lucky to get out hands on this delicious lot from Benti Nenka village. This coffee is from a new-to-us exporter Exchange Trading PLC via our trusted import partnerr Falconn Speciality. Exchange are a young company, managing various station in Guji, Yirgacheffe, Gesha and Sidama and exporting and championing high quality Ethiopian coffee. As well as quality, their focus is on driving community centric values, improving value for growers and promoting climate smart farming and processing practices.