Bette Buna
Ethiopia is one of the most fascinating coffee origins in the world, but it can also be one of the most challenging. Complex supply chains and limited traceability have made it difficult for us to buy coffee in the way we believe it should be bought—with transparency, meaningful producer relationships and confidence that value is reaching the people who grow it.
Bette Buna translates to "House of Coffee." Founded by husband-and-wife team Dawit and Hester, the project was created to honour the legacy of Dawit's grandparents, whose dream was to build a life through coffee. Today, that vision has grown into something far bigger than a coffee business.
Community sits at the heart of everything they do. Working alongside local chiefs, community leaders and smallholder farmers across Taferi Kela in Sidamo and Guji Megadu, Bette Buna supports producers through every stage of coffee production while investing in the future of the communities around them.
On our recent visit, our first few days in Ethiopia were spent in Taferi Kela, where we stayed with Dawit's family. We spent hours winding through spectacular landscapes, dodging cows, donkeys and tuk-tuks before arriving just as the sun set. But as beautiful as the scenery was, it was the people who made the biggest impression. The overwhelming sense that community isn't just something people talk about here—it's something they live every single day.
On the trip we visited was Bette Buna's seedling nursery. The nursery employs 106 full-time staff, and in 2025 alone distributed 350,000 coffee seedlings to local farmers - completely free of charge - helping farmers improve quality, increase yields and ultimately earn more from every harvest. It's one of those projects that's easy to overlook if you're only focused on what's in your cup, but without future harvests there is no future coffee.
On their farms, coffee here isn't grown ass endless monoculture plantations, instead, its nurtured beneath native shade trees alongside other plant species in thriving forest ecosystems. Healthy forests produce healthy soils, and healthy soil means great coffee. It's really as simple as that.
Like every coffee-producing country we visit, Ethiopia faces its own unique challenges. Across parts of Guji, booming gold mining has created serious labour shortages during harvest. Workers are often drawn away from coffee farms by the possibility of striking gold, leaving producers scrambling to find enough people to pick ripe cherries before they're lost. At the same time, Bette Buna currently rents space at a local wet mill while working towards building one of their own—a step that would give them more independence and control over quality. It's a reminder that producing exceptional coffee is rarely straightforward.
Looking to the future
Our commitment doesn't stop with buying coffee. This year, Bette Buna also became one of the recipients of our 1% for the Planet funding. Our contribution of £8,250 will help train 100 producers in Taferi Kela to become skilled farm managers. Those farmers will then share their knowledge throughout the wider community, creating benefits that extend far beyond a single harvest. For us, that's what meaningful sourcing looks like.
This is only our second year working with Bette Buna, but it already feels like one of those relationships we'll be talking about for many years to come. The coffees are everything we've come to love about Ethiopia—bright, expressive, sweet and beautifully balanced, and they're produced by people whose values closely mirror our own.
We can't think of a better foundation for the years ahead.
