Sharqi Haraz Cooperative, Yemen
- Spiced Rum
- Dried Strawberry
- Malted Chocolate
- Baking Spices
- Process
- Anaerobic: Natural
- Variety
- Jadi, Dawaery, Tuffahi, Jufini, Heirloom
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From the source
Yemen
Yemen is where coffee's story as a traded crop began. For centuries its beans left through the Red Sea port of Mocha, which gave the coffee its name. Today the country grows a very small share of the world's coffee, on farms that are among the smallest anywhere: families working plots of often less than a third of a hectare, in the mountains of the west.
The Yemen coffees we have roasted come from those families. Abdo Alqadah, who has grown coffee for 60 years near Bait Alal in the Hayma Kharijiya region, farms at 2,300 meters. The Sharqi Haraz Cooperative brings together growers in Eastern Haraz, in Sana'a Governorate.
- Harvest
- Oct–Dec main season
- Regions
- Western highlands
- Varieties
- Local heirlooms: Udaini, Dawairi, Tufahi
- Process
- Mostly natural
- With Bird Rock
- Natural-process micro-lots
Shop coffee from Yemen
$47.00
Yemen
Sharqi Haraz Cooperative
$47.00
Who we buy from
The farms, families and cooperatives behind our Yemen coffees.
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50% 50%“Water shapes everything here.”Yemen
About the land
Growing coffee in Yemen
Coffee grows in 15 of Yemen's 21 governorates, mostly in the western highlands, on narrow terraces cut into mountainsides and valley walls. It is a dry place to grow coffee. Rain comes in two short seasons, spring and late summer, and farmers plant trees in unusually deep holes and store rainwater in tanks so they can water between the rains.
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Most Yemeni coffee is processed as a natural: the whole ripe cherry is dried in the sun for roughly two to three weeks, on the ground, on tarpaulins or on rooftops, before the husk is removed. Farmers know their trees by local names such as Udaini, Dawairi, Tufahi and Bura'ai. Genetic research traces almost all of the world's cultivated arabica back to trees that left Yemen about 300 years ago. The main harvest runs from October to December.
A brief history
Yemen once held a near monopoly on the world's coffee trade, and that ended in the 18th century. In the 20th century another crop, qat, took over much of the farmland because it paid better, and coffee output fell by about half from its 1950s levels. Coffee recovered for a time, then declined again, and the war that began in 2014 and 2015 made inputs, transport and farm support much harder to come by.
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Coffee has still held its place in rural life. Export prices have risen, specialty buyers pay premiums for the best lots, and since 2019 community and youth groups have encouraged farmers to plant coffee in place of qat. Its terraces are still farmed in one of the places where coffee growing began.