Ethiopia Shoondhisa | Natural
Washing Station
The Dambi Uddo drying station, high in the Shakiso Hills, Guji, purchases cherries from approximately 100 smallholder coffee farmers. In Ethiopia, most producers are smallholders who often harvest coffee in their gardens, along with crops for personal/family consumption. This is why we refer to washing stations where these smallholder coffee farmers bring their cherries to be processed and batched. That is, the cherries are separated by sub-kebele (village) upon delivery. This batch is from the Shoondhisa sub-kebele within the Suke Quto kebele.
Process Method
The cherries are picked at their peak ripeness and taken to the central washing station. The cherries are then sun-dried on raised pallets for about 15 to 20 days, in very thin layers to ensure the most even drying possible.
After these days, the coffee is husked and stored in sacks. After a few months, it is taken to the thresher for export.
Origin
Ethiopia is widely known as the birthplace of coffee. As early as the 10th century, Ethiopians traversed the mountains eating the red cherries of wild coffee trees. It is from this indigenous plant that Arabica coffee spread worldwide.
Ethiopia is the largest coffee producer in Africa and the sixth largest in the world. It accounts for nearly 70% of its export revenue and employs approximately 15 million Ethiopians. There is one main harvest each year that takes place between November and February. More than half of Ethiopia’s coffee is produced on small plots of land around the coffee farmer’s home, known as the ‘coffee garden.’ Only 5% of Ethiopian coffee is produced on large estates, and these tend to be low-lying plantations in the west of the country. Ethiopia utilizes both washed and natural coffee processing techniques, with a wide variety of cultivars, producing some of the most magnificent and unique coffees in the world.
Guji is an area in the Oromia region of southern Ethiopia. The majority of residents of this region are Oromo and speak the Oromo language, which is completely different from Ethiopia’s main language, Amharic. Like many of the country’s coffee-growing regions, the culture of the Guji Zone varies from woreda to woreda. The area’s main source of freshwater is the Ganale Dorya River, which also acts as the boundary with the neighboring Bale Zone to the east.
To the west, Guji borders the southern Gedeb woreda of the Gedeo Zone in the neighboring Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region, part of the Yirgacheffe coffee-growing area.
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