Ethiopia Dumerso Washed

The Dumerso washing station is located near the town of Yirgacheffe and is run by sisters Hirut and Mahder Birhanu. The washing station had originally been built in the late 90’s but was not being used when the Hirut acquired the station in 2010. It reopened in 2013 focussing on washed coffees at first, though now does natural and experimental too. It provides a much needed facility in an area where over 90% of income is made through coffee.

Coffee is delivered to the washing station from a number of out growers in the surrounding area. First the coffee is floated, to both clean and remove any beans that are not dense enough to pass muster. Cherry is then pulped and fermented for 36 to 48 hours before being spread on raised beds to dry under the sun for 10-15 days. In the daytime the cherries need to be raked permanently in order to ensure a consistent drying process. They will be coved from 12 to 3pm in order to protect them from the hot sun. When the night comes, the beds are carefully covered to protect from rainfall.

The small surrounding farms where the coffee is grown are farming on red clay soil, which is rich in minerals such as aluminium and iron. Much of the coffee is shade grown, with the tree cover typically provided by Wanza, Birbirra and Acacia.

This forest is increasingly being looked after as Hirut and Mahder have started a new business to use the by-product of coffee parchment to create pressed firewood for use instead of gathered wood. This is often used to power guardiolas in countries that need it, but the synonymous raised beds and constant sun negate that need in Ethiopia.

The Heirloom coffee variety is a catch all term which encompasses many varieties of coffee in Ethiopia. Varieties come from broadly two categories – Jimma Agricultural Research Centre (JARC) an Ethiopian research centre concentrating on breeding coffees more resistant to pests (about 40 varieties), and regional landraces which grow wild in Ethiopia (not all are yet documented but thought to be over 10,000).