Supporting Female Farmers

Queen Sheba Coffee is in direct partnership with Ya Coffee who are based in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. My brother-in-law Dagmawi Eyasu and sister Sara are co-founders of YA COFFEE and DagmawiEyasu is a Biochemist, a CQI certified Q processer, a national coffee cupper, and holder of a Masters Degree in Coffee Economics and Science from world renown Illy foundation.

My sister Sara is the face of the business representing YA Coffee locally and globally. She is an AST (Authorized Specialty Trainer with a Development background working with the UN & Worldbank. Her engagement in the speciality coffee world has enabled her to educate young and upcoming coffee business enthusiasts and women in the coffee value chain, who handle 70% of the work from farm to cup.

Dagmawi explains their business model as a platform for learning.

He explains “We have also been roasting coffee as a business for almost a decade. As a result, we understand Ethiopian coffees across the supply and value chains. Leveraging our expertise, we have also developed four product lines that can cater to diverse consumers and their interests. This distinguishes us from other coffee companies in Ethiopia that primarily use geographic origin, roast levels, and package size as product lines. We go beyond and are always in the lookout for new product lines.

For example, we are now in the process of developing a product line for extreme elevation coffees that are grown at 2,200 to 3,000 m.a.s.l. Thus, our business model makes both innovation and sustainability a key parameters for doing business.

Finally, YA COFFEE has developed an in-house grading and Quality Control system that further re-grades all green coffee inputs per our standard. This further differentiates our products. In addition to that we have an active partnership based supply agreement with women smallholder farmers and their Cooperative Farmer Support Centers. This is unlike many others, who simply engage the smallholder farmers as out-growers and suppliers and do not fully build a collaborative partnership. We are here to make a difference".