Megadu

Megadu is a lot by Bette Buna in Guji; a floral and ripe profile with brown sugar, blackberry jam and apricot notes.

Bette Buna was founded by Dawit and Hester Syoum in 2020. Hester is originally from the Netherlands; she and Dawit met while they were working together in Ethiopia for an NGO. Dawit has a long family history in coffee, having grown up in Sidamo around his grandparents farm. His grandparents had always been seen as leaders in the community, so when they died, he and Hester took over the family farm, continuing the farm’s legacy as a safe haven for all, where all neighbours could feel at home. Hester and Dawit brought their experience in capacity building with communities across Ethiopia, and began to build Bette Buna, Amharic for ‘the house of coffee’, as a project to make a real difference for the community that surrounds the farm in Taferi Kela, Sidamo.

This lot is from Hester and Dawit’s newer project in Guji, near the village of Megadu, in the Shakiso sub-region. This area is densely forested; coffee has grown here for centuries, both wild and cultivated. Although Guji is just across the border from Dawit’s home region of Sidamo, the culture here is rather different, so Bette Buna allied with two local community leaders to start their project, on 220 hectares of land just outside Megadu. Hester and Dawit currently administer 50 hectares of the land, and process coffees from the wider plot and from neighbours for export. For some community members, they have even built small drying facilities on their land, or organised them into groups to share a miniature drying station. Each farmer also receives training on cherry selection, quality and drying. This capacity building allows producers to take more control of their supply chain, building a more finished product and allowing them access to the speciality market.