Yaye

Located in the Sidama region of Ethiopia, local producers bring their best and juiciest to the Yaye Washing Station. The cherries are purchased and then soaked for 2 hours, floaters and defective cherries are removed. This is the end of washing and the cherries are now processed in cherry as a natural processed coffee. The coffee is spread over raised beds with a specific thickness of cherry for evenness throughout. The placement of the beds is carefully chosen to encourage wind to blow regularly on the cherry to aid drying. The use of shade nets also helps control the even delivery of sun throughout the day for consistency. The coffee is moved and rotated many times a day and the process can last up to 30 days to fully dry a lot of coffee. This coffee is purchased through the Sidama Farmers Cooperative Union which acts as an intermediary to specific mill cooperatives. The traceability in Ethiopia is difficult, but hopefully improving. The Ethiopian Coffee Exchange is how all coffee is sold and exported. It fluctuates like Wall Street and puts live prices on specific grades for each region. The good news is that even if a producer is small and only has 1 sack to sell from their backyard, they can still go to market. The bad news is that in the past we have been unable to determine where specifically a bag of coffee has come from and who the producer or cooperative might have been. This is improving and is exciting to see progressive moves in Ethiopian exports. Thanks to the legends at Cafe Imports for buying this lot, it jumped off the cupping table and put me in a headlock until I requested a few bags.