Ethiopia
Kayon Mountain
Shakiso
East Guji
1900-2200 masl
Heirloom Varieties
Natural

Fresh peach, nougat, and jasmine florals.

Humble roots, big impacts: Kayon Mountain Coffee Farm spans 500 hectares, with around 300 hectares dedicated solely to coffee. Owned and run by Ismael Hassen Aredo and his family since 2012, the farm is located 510 kilometres south of Addis Ababa, crossing the border between two villages Taro and Sewana, in the Guji zone of Ethiopia’s Oromia region.

Ismael doesn’t just manage the farm (as if that wasn't enough), he’s also a community leader. He oversees a team of 25 full-time employees and 300 seasonal workers. To support the community, the farm provides free transportation and financial aid for building schools and administrative facilities in their township. With the local mining industry also in need of seasonal workers, Ismael ensures he offers competitive wages to keep his workers coming back year after year. Ismael values relationships and rewards experience and loyalty--at the end of the day coffee production is a team event. and it only takes standards to slip a little for crop quality to suffer a lot. 

Sustainable practice makes perfect: Ismael is well-known in the region for his commitment to sustainable farming. From his attention to detail at the farm management and processing levels to the way his farm runs, the ways his employees work, to the way his coffee ultimately tastes. The support for smallholder farmers includes an on-site coffee tree nursery and uses shade trees, like acacia and other indigenous varieties, to protect the young coffee plants. The biodiverse nursery replenishes coffee farm stocks as plants age and require pruning as well as contributing to composting efforts and providing natural fertilisers.

Natural, simple, good: At Kayon Mountain, both natural and washed coffee lots are produced. Natural coffees, harvested and delivered on the same day, are sorted for quality, rinsed, and then spread on raised drying beds. Workers regularly rotate the beans to ensure even drying, a process that can take anywhere from 8 to 25 days, depending on the weather.

Heirloom, the beauty's in the mystery: Kayon Mountain's coffee isn’t traceable to a single variety but it's for good reason. The farms' varieties consist of many native heirloom varieties found in Ethiopia. The varieties are indigenous to the area and known for their unique flavours and their place as an integral part of the region’s coffee culture. Ethiopia holds a special place in the coffee world, not just because it’s the birthplace of Arabica coffee, but because coffee here is woven into the very fabric of life. Unlike most coffee-producing countries, where coffee was introduced as a cash crop during colonisation, Ethiopians have been growing, processing, and enjoying coffee for centuries.

Many gardens make coffee life work: The Guji region, known for its lush forests, is located in southern Ethiopia. Though once considered part of Sidama, Guji has since gained its own identity. Farmers here grow coffee at high altitudes in rich red soil, setting the region's coffee apart from neighbouring areas. These small-scale farmers, known for cultivating coffee in “gardens” rather than traditional farms, deliver their cherries to local washing stations, where the beans are processed together. Most Ethiopian farmers are smallholders with less than a hectare of land, and often, coffee trees grow more like they would in a garden or forest rather than in vast fields. While there are some large estates and cooperative societies, the majority of Ethiopian coffee is grown on small, family-run plots. It is these differences in the mico-climates and subsequent differences in the varietals they produce that create the profiles and complexity that are truly a uniquely Ethiopian and Kayon Mountain hallmark.