Blog — Ethiopia

We know our Gatta Anaerobic is good. Crazy good. Good enough to take to competition, even. Still, when Coffee Review in their March tasting report awarded this recent Ethiopian micro lot with a soaring 94 points, we were blissfully over the moon. Gatta Anaerobic is Olympia Coffee's first-ever anaerobic coffee from Ethiopia, sourced from producer Kenean Dukamo of Gatta Farm in Sidamo. It also happens to be the only lot on Coffee Review's list that hails from the African continent. While more farms in Latin America seem to have jumped on anaerobic processing, the trend has picked up more slowly...

What is it that makes specialty coffee so, well, magical? For us at Olympia Coffee, it’s the people. The farmers and importers, roasters and production experts, baristas and cafe regulars — and so many others that support and shape us. It’s because of these people, living in diverse, vibrant communities across the globe, that we’ve grown our company around a core mission to work toward a coffee industry that’s equitable, ethical, and sustainable from seed to cup. So that everyone whose hands and hearts go into making this delicious, carefully crafted coffee can enjoy a better quality of life. That’s...

I've been in love with coffee from the Adame Garbota Cooperative for many years. Actually I've loved their coffee before they were even called Adame Garbota. You see I first tasted their coffee in 2006 when the Coop was called Kelo, and the Kelo Cooperative had just won the Africa Taste of Harvest Competition. I worked for a roaster that bought their winning lot, and I never forgot about it. After the competition, the cooperative received some loans and big financing that sadly organizationally they were not prepared for. In 2008 the Coop defaulted on loans and closed. In 2011...

2016 will mark our most serious year working in Ethiopia. Ethiopia tends to be our most popular Origin we source from. Customers and Baristas gravitate to it, I believe because of it's easy to identify flavors. The coffees of Ethiopia are totally unique to Ethiopia, no other origin could be confused with it in terms of flavors. Typically flavors lean to the fruity and floral side of the coffee descriptions.  Over the last six years we have been purchasing through two very large Cooperatives which represent thousands of small holder farmers. All our coffees are Certified Organic and Fair Trade....

Recently, three of our team had the immense honor of representing Olympia Coffee Roasting and the Pacific Northwest overall at the United States Coffee Championships in Long Beach, California. Co-owner Sam Schroeder, Retail Trainer Brady MacDonald, and Downtown Coffee Bar Manager Alex Choppin qualified for this prestigious event by competing at the regional level in October. There, Alex placed Second in Brewer's Cup, Brady placed Second in Barista Championship, and Sam was crowned Northwest Barista Champion. At the U.S. Coffee Championships Sam, Brady, and Alex all had strong showings in the semi-finals round of each competition. Brady's routine focused on ingredients from the Puget...