023 - Shibru Dube

We anticipate that this coffee will be roasted for 2026 season subscribers the weeks of February 2 and February 9, 2026; public sale will follow.

The second coffee of our 2026 season is an Aviary-exclusive lot from a single producer in Gedeb, Yirgacheffe—his first-ever attempt at a wet-process coffee presenting in a floral, fruity cup with notes of jasmine, rose, cherry, lime zest, Valencia orange and peach.

From Christopher: "I visited Shibru Dube for the first time in December 2023 as part of my sourcing work for Crop to Cup Coffee Importers. Much of my work was focused on opening markets for smallholder-exporters such as Shibru, who had obtained his export license in 2018 but had never successfully sold his coffee directly to a roaster or importer.

"While many—if not most—of the most renowned coffees to come out of Ethiopias in recent years were grown in the newer-planted highlands around Bensa, I have long loved the cup profiles of coffees coming out of Yirgacheffe and saw high quality potential as we walked Shibru's small farm in the kebele of Chelchele.

"Eight years after export liberalization, it's still rare to find single-producer, smallholder wet processed coffees from Southern Ethiopia. Large-scale, privately-owned washing stations dot Sidama, Guji and Yirgacheffe and process lots using cherry collected from hundreds or thousands of farmers each; without access to smaller-scale mills, smallholder-exporters nearly exclusively produce cherry-dried naturals. 

"By exporting directly rather than selling their coffee as cherry, producers stand to gain greater value for their harvest and increase their financial security. In the past, Shibru had sold his cherry to local suppliers, receiving market pricing. His first attempt to export directly was derailed by a motorcycle accident en route to Dilla that broke both of his legs and led to Kefyalew stepping in to help his father. It was through Kefyalew—who works as a civics teacher in Addis and who had helped Moata's company, CoQua, with social media—that we met Shibru.

"The elevation of Shibru's farm, 2100 meters, is high for the area; the hike through his tall Kurume and Dega plantings overshadowed by hundred-year-old hardwood trees left me short of breath. Unlike other prize-winning parts of the South like Bensa, his farm was densely forested with a thick layer of topsoil. As we walked, Kefyalew noted that the Gedeo people regard the forest with a spiritual reverence; to his family, agriculture was a way to honor that gift and the ancient trees must be preserved to ensure their family's continued prosperity.

"As a result of his first direct export following our visit in 2023, Shibru was able to expand the size of his drying area and his son, Kefyalew, was able to attend training to become certified as an agent, cupper and quality specialist. For our second year, we provided a disc pulper manufactured by GEM (the same model used by Basha Bekele for AVIARY#008, Mate Matiwos for AVIARY#007 and Bekele Belaychow for AVIARY#005) to explore how Shibru might be able to offer an alternative to large washing stations for wet processed coffees from Gedeb. This pulper was funded, in part, through direct contributions by Aviary toward the project—in addition to a pre-harvest commitment to purchase.

"The harvest was nearly complete when I returned to Shibru's family farm in December 2024; he had not yet begun processing using the pulper. With the assurances that I would purchase the coffee, he and Kefyalew produced a small lot of 180kg using fruit from some of the highest-elevations on their farm, which grows Dega and Kurume varieties.

"The infrastructure of Ethiopia from washing stations to dry mills to finance is built to support the common practice of aggregating coffee from hundreds of thousands of smallholders—not producing micro-lots from single smallholders. This creates challenges and delays; in order to move the coffee to Addis for milling, Shibru had to wait for approval for the contracts from other neighboring producers, whose harvest may have run longer. And once in Addis, scheduled milling times may not have been kept as microlots are deprioritized for larger-scale lots. Once milled, there may be delays at the port as a result of a high volume of exports and the complexity of shipping under multiple exporter numbers in a single consolidated container. Consequently, the arrival timing of this lot was significantly delayed; it did not land in the U.S. until late October of 2025, nearly 10 months after harvest. As a result, this lot did show a small amount of fade in the cup—but we are committed to this project and our relationship with Shibru and accepted the lot regardless, endeavoring to highlight its best qualities and minimize any apparent age through our roasting approach.

"And, indeed, it had a lot of good to show: floral, bright notes of jasmine, lavender, rose, cherry, sweet orange, grapefruit and lime zest."