ETHIOPIA Wolde Hirbe Natural

The story of Wolde Hirbe’s coffee is one of unexpected resilience despite many obstacles. Wolde Hirbe grows coffee on a small pair of farms in the Jemjemo and Dodoro communities of the Wenago district in Gedeo, located outside Yirgacheffe. His family of 10 helps him with the annual harvest, which he usually contributes to the Adame Gorbota cooperative, a member of the large Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers’ Cooperative Union (YCFCU). However, this is a single-farmer lot. In 2012, Olympia Coffee partnered with Royal Coffee and the YCFCU to reward individual farmers who produce coffee of outstanding quality and who push themselves to achieve greater equity and quality of life on their farms. Wolde Hirbe was among the farmers first selected in 2012, and has participated in the program ever since. With over three decades of coffee farming experience, Wolde Hirbe has remained a member of the Adame Gorbota cooperative. Despite financial troubles that befell the cooperative in 2006, Hirbe and other committed members of Adame Gorbota have redoubled their efforts to consistently produce excellent coffees, and it remains among the smallest and most tight-knit cooperatives in Yirgacheffe.