Mission Coffee Works | Genji Challa | Ethiopia
The Roaster
Mission Coffee Works started as a street van back in 2012 serving coffee to the people of Peckham, London. Shortly after they relocated both their physical location and focus and started roasting coffee.
The green beans that Mission purchase are of the highest quality, while at the same time adhering to their ethics and values of sustainability.
They don’t hide from the fact that the coffee has already been on such a long journey to get to their coffee roaster and are humble in their marketing approach. They make sure their customers are fully aware that the farmers, pickers, mill workers, green buyers and importers all made their cup of coffee possible.
Their passion for coffee enables them to build awareness of the complicated supply chain in speciality coffee and has given them the platform to build sustainable relationships from the finca to the flame.
"At Mission they have a mission - to source incredible green coffee and roast it with care. Hoping that you have as much fun brewing it as they did getting it to you."
A few steps that they have taken to stay on top of the sustainability game is making a huge effort to recycle everything they can in the roastery.
It is sometimes painful to see the amount of waste in shipping and packaging, however with a little innovation reusing or recycling certain things can really help.
They have an electric van which they use to deliver coffee to their wholesale clients and have made a huge cutback in water consumption in the roastery and kitchen.
The Coffee
The Genji Challa coffee from Mission Coffee Works originates from a washing station of the same name.
It is the sister station to Nano Challa, born out of the need for greater capacity as membership rose and volumes of cherry being delivered becoming too much for the capacity of the Nano Challa station alone.
There are now 600 members split between the two sites situated in the Ethiopian highlands in natural forests.
This success and growth originates from the fortunes Nano Challa being were 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 provided 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 had access too and the premiums of Grade 1 Ethiopian Specialty Coffees.
Farmer members cultivate coffees at altitudes between 1850 and 2100 metres, and have around 3 hectares of land each, on average.
As is the case across Ethiopia, most of the coffees grown locally are organic by default, and consist mostly of old, naturally indigenous heirloom varieties, punctuated by smaller areas of an improved native varietal called 1274.
Once producers deliver coffee to the washing station, cherries are floated before being depulped using a Penagos Eco Pulper.
The coffee is then soaked in clean water in concrete tanks for 8 hours before drying; firstly skin-dried and sorted under shade, before being sun dried for approximately 10 days on raised African drying beds.
The Review
The fragrance suggests stone fruit and the coffee beans had a real sweet aftertaste (if you don’t already, I’d recommend eating the odd coffee bean. Although to start off with it’s a strange texture and almost unenjoyable - it eventually isn’t too bad and gives you a great indication of both flavour and roast profile).
The ground coffee holds true to the fragrance and more juicy fruit filled aromas permeate from the bloom.
First sips are smooth, the body is medium and the sweetness of the stone fruits (I tasted apricot) take the lead.
The coffee is bright but not overly acidic just yet. Notes of mandarin and an edge of dark chocolate layer into the sweetness of the apricot quite nicely.
As the coffee becomes almost room temperature it evolves once again and now the acidity take centre stage, notes of lime make a beeline for the back corners of your palate and leave a delicious aftertaste.
A bright and juicy coffee that I could enjoy all day. It’s pretty darn good across all methods of brewing. A pour over really highlighted the delicate notes though.
