The story of Tagel Alamayehu, the owner of an exporting company Olkai and a coordinator of Hambela Goro station, is pretty impressive.
His father was a Guji legend: a producer and a coffee trader who built the very first washing station in the Bule Hora community in Guji, in the early 00’s. In the meantime, unfortunately, he went bankrupt losing all of his growing lands.
Tagel promised himself to redeem the plots that had belonged to his father and years later he pulled it off!
Then, in 2018, when the government made it easier for producers to export by liberalizing legislation, he founded Olkai, with which we started a partnership this year (2025).
Hambela Goro works with 460 smallholder producers that grow 74110 varietal at an impressive altitude of 2300 masl. Most of them own literally only hundreds of coffee trees each, which makes lots from Hambela Goro truly multi-component blends. At the same time, the consistency and quality of this coffee are beyond extraordinary.
In addition to direct involvement in coffee production, Olkai prioritizes social responsibility in order to empower producers they work with. Under Tagel’s leadership the company provides above-market rates for growers, distributes seedlings annually and supports the construction of schools and needed infrastructure within communities.
