This stunning coffee comes from smallholder producers in Bookkisa, a kebele (hamlet) in the Shakiso district of Guji. Grown at a lofty 2,000–2,150 MASL amidst the lush forests for which Guji is famed, the cherries are brought to the Weessi washing station, operated by Sookoo Coffee. The result is a beautifully clean cup with ripe apricot, clementine, and soft florals.
Sookoo Coffee is a family-owned producing and export company based in Guji, led by the renowned Ture Waji — affectionately known as “The King of Guji” for his deep, longstanding ties to the community and land. Sookoo operates in three woredas (districts) in East Guji: Shakiso, Uraga, and Haro Welabu, working with small groups of local farmers who deliver their coffee cherries to Sookoo’s drying stations. Between harvests, Sookoo offers training in good agricultural and harvesting practices.
In 2023, Sookoo built its third drying station, Weessi - their first with the capacity to process washed coffees. Though Sookoo is best known for their naturals, this washed lot from Bookkisa stood out to us on the cupping table for its clean stone fruit notes and delicate florals.
The lot is made up of two varieties: Gibirinna 74110 and Serto 74112 — part of the “Meta Bashari selections” developed by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC) in 1974. JARC discovered these varieties in the forests of the Meta Bushari region, and selected and propagated them for their disease resistance. These have since become some of the most widely propagated varieties in Ethiopia.
Freshly harvested cherries are delivered to the Weessi station, where they undergo rigorous sorting to remove any underripe or overripe fruit. The cherries are then pulped using a Penagos eco-pulper and fermented in water for 12 hours. After fermentation, the coffee is washed and laid out on raised beds to dry to the desired moisture level. Once dried, the beans are hand-sorted by Sookoo’s team according to size and shape. In Addis Ababa, the lot undergoes two more sorting stages: first, optical sorting to remove beans with primary or secondary defects, followed by gravity separation to remove broken or low-density beans. The final coffee is then packed and transported to Djibouti for export, which landed in the UK in May 2025.
This is the second coffee we’ve purchased through Osito, a sourcing company we’ve long admired for its relational approach and commitment to building transparent, long-term partnerships between producers and roasters. Osito has worked with Ture Waji since the very beginning — they were literally his first customer. Until recently, their purchases focused exclusively on Sookoo’s natural process lots. This year marks their first purchase of a washed lot from Bookkisa — and ours, too.
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