It may be argued that more great coffees come from Sidama than any place in the world, so it’s no surprise that Counter Culture's Head Roaster Tim Hill is always keeping an eye out for coffees from this area. Lucky for him our local friend Samuel Demisse, who regularly attends the Friday Cupping at the CCC DC Training Center, brought him a coffee from Michicha.

The region called Sidama in Southern Ethiopia is inhabited by a number of indigenous people, including a people called the Guji. Michicha is a Guji village within a mountainous region refered to as the Guji Zone, which is famous for extraordinary coffee. Peter, Counter Culture’s director of coffee had the privilege to meet the tribal elder earlier this year. The coffee mill in this village meticulously processes coffee in the traditional sundried method. This technique – in concert with outstanding heirloom coffee varieties indigenous to the Ethiopian mountains – creates elegant, clean, extremely sweet coffees with intense honeysuckle-floral notes and winey berry fruitiness.

This coffee managed to make its way through the Ethiopian coffee system – from mill through the new Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, a Guji exporter to our friend Samuel, who offered it to us. Tim will close the circle when he visits Ethiopia in a few weeks, meeting the miller and farmers in Michicha.