In Odo-Shakiso, in Ethiopia's Oromia region, Biru Bekele has spent his life learning what this land is capable of. Eighteen years as a coffee grower taught him the rhythms of these hills long before he ever built a station of his own. What he saw was potential that hadn't yet been matched by the processing and care it deserved. So in 2019, he did something about it.
The station he built bears his name, and the standard he set for it hasn't wavered since: every cherry sorted by hand, every lot watched closely, nothing left to chance. Biru Bekele has become known throughout southern Guji for this kind of attention, and for a willingness to experiment that few producers in the region can match. His work with fermentation, including the use of Cimma yeast in select natural lots, has pushed his coffees toward a complexity that's rare to find. It's this same instinct for craft that runs through everything coming out of his station, whether the process is washed or natural.
Day to day, the station is run by Mesfin Girma, whose steady hand keeps the work moving through every harvest. It's his care, as much as Biru Bekele's vision, that shapes what ends up in the cup. Together they've built something rooted in this land, in soil that has always known how to grow good coffee.
This natural processed coffee dries slowly for 12-16 days with the cherries fully intact in the sun. It's a method that asks for patience, and Biru Bekele's team has learned exactly how much of it this coffee needs, the result a cup that's fruit-forward and smooth, balanced from first sip to last.
This is a coffee that carries a name, a place, and a community's work in every cup. What you're tasting is Biru Bekele's answer to the question of what this land can become when someone gives it the attention it deserves.
Espresso 1:2 / Pourover 1:16
