ETHIOPIA Yabitu Koba

Guji lies in the southern Ethiopian highlands, in the same Rift Valley as the Yirgacheffe and Sidamo coffee growing regions. Koba is one of Guji’s many small coffee-growing villages, located in the Uraga sub-region at an altitude of over 2,300 masl. Even by Ethiopian standards, this is a rural area, where many producers transporting their ripe cherries across long distances by donkey or mule, using dirt roads to reach the washing station.

Farmers here intercrop their coffee with both food crops and shade trees, especially with false banana, which is widely used throughout the coffee regions of Ethiopia. "Koba" is Oromiffa for false banana; such is the importance of the crop here. The plant’s symbiotic relationship with coffee trees and the porridge-like dish that can be made from its starchy fruit lead to its popularity across rural Ethiopia. The quiet rural lifestyle is striking here. Many have only ever worked with coffee, together with and at the mercy of nature. This close relationship and observation, alongside favourable conditions and soil, lead to excellent quality, without the use of external inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers.