THE STORY

It was long time ago, when this eternal land, burned by a rhubarb & peach sun, welcomed the mother of the mothers. Mercy was given to the earth and juicy & vibrant became her sons' life.

THE PRODUCER

Genji Challa is a sister washing station to the famous Nano Challa (part of the Kata Muduga Cooperative Union), which was established in 2019, just a few miles away from the Nano Challa station, which was etsablished in 2004. This station was born out of a need of more space, as the membership grew and volumes of cherry being delivered becoming too much for the capacity of the Nano Challa station alone. There are now over 600 members, split between the two sites, situated in the Ethiopian highlands, in natural forest. This success and growth originates from the fortune Nano Challa being boosted in 2010, when they were chosen to be part of the Technoserve Coffee Initiative alongside other remote farming communities in Jimma, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Technoserve provides technical assistance and training to producer groups and helps coordinate agronomists and business advisors to help improve coffee quality, assist in the management of debt, reinvestment and the fair distribution of funds to each coop member. The impact of the initiative was huge, as it helped coops like Nano Challa transition from natural processing to washed, via the building of washing stations. These allowed them to completely change the market and quality they...

GENJI CHALLA

Nano specialty coffee roastery based in Zurich, Switzerland.
Seasonally sourced, carefully selected and freshly roasted, straight to your door!

BIRCHBACH

THE STORY

Sweeter days will come. The proof is in the pudding. Sweet like apple & plum our hearts, creamy & soft our souls. The future of the people, by the people, "Kub W'Abantu"!

THE PRODUCER

Kayumbu Station was built by the Rwandan army. Army-built stations are constructed to receive huge volumes of cherry each season. BIRCHBACH’s partner SUCAFINA in collaboration with RWACOF purchased the station in 2013 and have been working with the 1055+ farmers delivering cherry to the station ever since. Together they’ve worked to increase the prices farmers receive, by dedicating themselves to meticulous, quality-oriented processing.

The farmers who deliver their cherry to Kayumbu are flush with options of nearby washing stations. Kayumbu has very high-quality standards, but in order to be competitive, they must accept nearly all cherry delivered. If they do not, the farmer will choose to go to a different station next time in order to sell more of their crop and limit time spent on cherry sorting.

After purchasing cherry from producers, Kayumbu sends the cherry through a strict sorting process. First, washing station staff remove any lower quality cherry through flotation. Then, a specially trained staff visually inspects the remaining cherry for any visual defects.
Following sorting, cherry is spread in a thin layer on raised beds where it is turned regularly to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 3 weeks for cherry to sundry. In order to devote their attention to...

KAYUMBU

THE STORY

He was alone, lost in a blackberry & grape darkness. He prayed and his faith in mother earth ripped that syrupy & dense void. "Take this holy seed my beloved son. In it you'll find your rebirth".

THE PRODUCER

Miller Walles Cruz never ceases to seek out and incorporate new agronomic knowledge to improve his coffee farm. Under his fastidious care and with this help of his family, Finca La Morelia has blossomed into a productive, specialty coffee farm that maintains quality across the entire cultivation and production process.

Tall, quiet and soft-spoken, Miller Walles wasn’t always a coffee farmer. In the early 2000s, Miller Walles transitioned from sugarcane. According to him, the switch to coffee was life-saving because coffee enabled him to better support his family. With his wife, Dadny Salinas, and oldest son, Ricardo, Miller Walles transformed Finca La Morelia from its wild and infertile beginnings to today’s productive coffee farm. They also preserved a portion of the land as protected forest to maintain local biodiversity.

Miller Walles is dedicated to expanding his coffee producing knowledge. He has taken courses on coffee production and farm managements taught by professional agronomists from local institutions like SENA (the National training Service). He has also attended workshops sponsored by the United Nations and those run at the producers’ association to which he belongs.

Finca La Morelia is located in the Huila region, one of the most well-known coffee growing areas located in the southwest of Colombia.
Along with Cauca and Nariño, Huila is one the three departments where the Colombian Massif is located. A massif is a group of mountain ranges, and the Colombian Massif, which is known locally as Nudo de Almaguer, provides up to 70% of safe drinking and agricultural water for the Colombian population.
The Magdalena River, the Colombia’s largest river, runs through the region, providing plenty of water for coffee farming and generating (directly and indirectly) up to 86% of Colombia GDP. The mountain range also features the fertile volcanic soil so typical to the Andean Mountains.

Miller Walles’ Finca La Morelia runs mostly on family labor but they hire day laborers during harvest to help them pick cherry at the perfect time. To encourage laborers to pick only the ripest cherry, Miller Walles pays his workers an average of 1,000 pesos more per unit of cherry picked than most farms in the area.
Miller Walles floats all cherry at his wet mill and removes any damaged or unripe cherry. Once sorted, cherry is pulped and laid to dry for approximately 20 days.

BIRCHBACH

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BIRCHBACH

🇨🇭 Switzerland

Coffee items

GENJI CHALLA

KAYUMBU

MILLER WALLES CRUZ