Gedeb Chelbesa station

The Chelbesa wet mill sits in the locality of Danche, by the village of Chelbesa, in the Gedeb woreda of the Gedeo Zone. This is the heart of the Yirgacheffe appellation, and the station itself sits above 2,000 metres. Around 476 small-scale producers deliver cherry from plots close by, where coffee grows in a semi-forest environment under shade trees and next to food crops such as bananas.

The site runs tiled fermentation tanks and roughly 164 raised drying beds, which gives it the capacity to keep lots separate rather than blend everything together. Alongside washed and natural coffees it produces yellow, red and white honey profiles, plus yeast and co-fermentation experiments. This lot is the straightforward washed version: pulped, fermented in tank, washed clean and dried on the beds.

About Quo Coffee

Quo is a small roastery in Skärhamn on Tjörn, north of Gothenburg, started by a group of colleagues who had worked together elsewhere in Swedish coffee. They buy on long relationships rather than spot lots, work with several producers they have known for over a decade, and pay attention to the carbon cost of getting coffee to Sweden. They were among the first roasters to join Belco’s sail freight programme.

Brewing it

Washed Yirgacheffe is delicate, and the floral top notes are the first thing to go if the brew runs long or too hot. A flat-bottom brewer keeps the bed even and the extraction gentle, so something like the OREA O1 Brewer in steel suits it well. A reasonable starting point is 15 g of coffee to 250 g of water at 94 °C, medium grind, with a total time around 2:30 to 3:00. A fast-draining paper such as the HIFLUX High Fast Wave filters keeps the cup clean without stalling the bed. Give the beans four to six days off roast before the first brew.

Coffee details