Grower - 97 smallholder farms from the villages of Bani Alawam and Mabyan, organized around Pearl of Tehama

Altitude - 1800 masl

Soil - Sandy loam

Region - Hajjah Governorate, Yemen

Process - Full natural dried on rooftops and raised beds

Harvest - October - March

This coffee is produced by small legacy farmers in the high mountains of Yemen’s northwestern Hajjah Governorate, specifically from the village communities of Bani Alawam and Mabyan.

Coffee-growing families in this part of Yemen, similar to many others across the country, tend parcels of terraced land passed through many generations. Farm sizes average about one hectare only, managed by an average household size of 6 family members. Coffee is the one crop that continues to survive all others, both for the livelihood it provides as well as a being a deep social tradition that keeps communities together. Coffee tends to be 30-50% of family income in this part of Yemen.

All coffee from this part of Hajjah is processed as a natural: hand-picked, sorted for consistency, and dried in a single layer in full sun on raised beds or rooftops. Hajjah’s terroir is considered one of the best in the country and coffee produced here is constantly in demand both internationally and domestically. The Hajjah Governorate extends from Yemen’s west coast, to the border with Saudi Arabia, and then down along the country’s western highlands.

Yemen is the oldest territory on Earth to cultivate coffee. Its seed stock, originally transported from wild arabica landraces in Ethiopia, was used to create the world’s first ever coffee farms where coffee would be grown commercially for trade across the Arabian peninsula and eventually mainland Europe. (“Arabica” itself referred to the Arabian coffee supply that was the West’s first in history.)