ONYX - Gera Estate Anaerobic | Ethiopia - Anaerobic Natural - Landrace

From the highland forests of the Gera Estate, this anaerobically processed lot captures the vivid fruit of Ethiopian coffee, transformed through a sealed, low-oxygen fermentation. Grown under organic, biodiverse conditions, and supported by Gera’s commitment to sustainable farming and social equity, this coffee offers a refined expression of processing and the unique quality of Ethiopian coffees.

Nestled in the ancient coffee forests of Djimma, widely believed to be coffee’s birthplace, the GERA Estate cultivates shade-grown Arabica at elevations reaching over 2,100 meters. The altitude slows cherry maturation, intensifying sugar development and giving the coffee its signature sweetness and structure.

As a privately owned estate, GERA is vertically integrated: they control cultivation, harvesting, and processing entirely on-site. But what sets them apart isn’t just traceability, they routinley produce high quality grade coffees year after year. We have partnered with our friends at Royal Coffee NY to bring in this coffee, and are thrilled at the results.

ANAEROBIC PROCESSING
There are few leaps in the technique of processing coffee larger than the most recent trend of Anaerobic processing. This is oftentimes a technique of natural processing coffee, where whole cherries are fermented in a limited oxygen environment. The word Anaerobic is a catch-all term used more often than not to refer to a limited oxygen environment. Coffee cherries are subject to pre-fermentation before they are moved to a drying bed or patio. The extended fermentation often adds a winey or fruity note to the coffee. Throughout the world, we’ve seen this practiced in many ways, from adding cherries into a clean grainpro and tying the top for the night, all the way to stainless tanks with an airlock on the top to slowly let out carbon dioxide caused by the microbes at work. There are many who are working to understand and better control this process to gain clarity on what is really going on with limited oxygen fermentation.