Tadese Teko, Ethiopia — Washed Filter

Mr. Tadese Teko farms eight hectares in Shale village, near Worka in the Gedeb district of Ethiopia’s Gedeo Zone. His holding is unusually large for the area—around twice the locally reported average—and coffee provides the principal income with which he supports his family and sends his nine children to school. Mr. Tadese follows traditional highland growing practices, cultivating coffee beneath shade and using natural fertiliser made from farm waste rather than chemical fertiliser, pesticides or fungicides. Although his washed coffee would ordinarily be combined with deliveries from neighbouring farms at Halo Beriti, its exceptional quality allowed this lot to be separated and presented under his own name.

While internationally recognised as Yirgacheffe, this coffee grows in Gedeb, one of the highest and most celebrated producing districts within the wider Gedeo coffee landscape. Mr. Tadese’s farm sits between approximately 1,780 and 2,100 metres above sea level, where cool temperatures encourage cherries to mature slowly and develop dense, flavourful seeds. Coffee here forms part of a sophisticated, multi-layered farming system in which shade trees shelter coffee alongside enset, avocado, cereals and other food crops. This relationship between forest, agriculture and Gedeo cultural knowledge is so distinctive that UNESCO inscribed the Gedeo Cultural Landscape on its World Heritage List in 2023.

Once harvested, the cherries are depulped, fermented and thoroughly washed before the seeds are dried on raised beds—a process that highlights the clarity, florals and sparkling acidity for which washed Yirgacheffe is famous. This Grade 1 lot offers cooked cherry and candied-citrus brightness over mild caramel, with juicy acidity and candy-like sweetness; “Grade 1” refers to Ethiopia’s highest preparation category for uniformity, cleanliness and minimal defects rather than a flavour score. Most importantly, the Single Farmer Project preserves a level of identity historically lost when Ethiopian smallholder coffees