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Ethiopia is know to be the birthplace of coffee and the finest producer of specialty coffee in the world, and also it appears, “the source of the finest hand roasting artisans on the planet”. Garden of Coffee, Ethiopia’s main coffee chain, created by Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, is expanding to China, and intends to open 100 cafés in the country by 2022.
Garden of Coffee
Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu begun Garden of Coffee so that people everywhere could experience what she calls “that magic”. According to her, “once you taste Ethiopian coffee that has been hand roasted by traditional Ethiopian coffee artisans on their hand crafted ceramic roasters, your coffee perspectives are forever changed”. She has a dream that everyone should one day taste hand-roasted Ethiopian coffee.
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The particularity of Garden of Coffee, is that it uses artisanal methods to source, process, roast, and package Ethiopia’s legendary beans, which helps preserve the quality of the coffee for the final customer.
Venturing into the Chinese market
Garden of Coffee launched in China last August, a country on which several large firms from the coffee industry, such as Starbucks, Coca-Cola, e-commerce giant Alibaba, Java House, are betting on. Through a deal with Suzhou Reyto trading company, GOC says it will ship 12 tons of hand-roasted coffee to China in the first year. Ethiopia is currently Africa’s top coffee grower with 7.5 millions of tons produced from 2017 to 2018, followed by Uganda (4.3millions of tons), and Ivory Coast (1.4 millions of tons).
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“The company has also launched advertisement and marketing on the multi-purpose messaging and social media app WeChat, and will soon place its product on the shopping site Taobao. But it’s big plan is to open over 100 café roasteries across China by 2022. Through a subscription service, customers will also be able to receive their favorite coffee of choice in one, two, or four-week intervals.”
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“By embracing traditional Ethiopian roasting methods and taking them globally, Alemu says she hopes to shape the “fourth wave” that is defining coffee’s evolution. The first wave involved the mass drinking of the brew, the second grew with the rise of a coffee culture through brands like Starbucks, while the third focused on artisanal coffee making. The fourth wave now focuses less on commercialization, and more on long-term sustainability, besides promoting and preserving local ways of farming.” (Quartz).
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Sources: Quartz; Garden of Coffee
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