Harvest and Processing of Coffee in Ethiopia

In coffee plant, the time of flowering determines the time of the maturing of the coffee fruit. In
most coffee-growing areas of Ethiopia, the flowering period is between December and April and
the harvesting period falls between August and January. That is, seed maturity occurs mostly six
to nine months after the blooming period triggered by rainfall. This naturally ensures continuous
production throughout the year. Coffee harvesting is done mostly by family labor for the size of
the average coffee farm is small (about 0.5ha).

Coffee is processed by two widely known methods: dry and wet. In the dry method, coffee is
dried more slowly than wet-processed coffee for it is harvested with a variable moisture content
that sometimes requires water to be removed from throughout the whole fruit. Natural coffee
drying takes about three to four weeks in the sun, which may be longer in cloudy or damp
weather. The coffee cherry is allowed to dry to about 11.5 per cent moisture in the whole fruit
and then all the outer layers are removed together by hulling until the commercial bean is
obtained and delivered to the central market.

In Ethiopia top-quality coffee is produced by the wet method only from freshly picked, fully ripe
cherries. Harvesting is done carefully, under close supervision of development agents through
which farmers are always advised. After they are carefully picked, the cherries are sorted before
pulping and unsuitable cherries are removed then the final sorted and clean cherries are pulped
the same day they are harvested. The pulped wet parchment coffee goes to the different
fermentation tanks to ferment naturally. The process is carefully supervised to avoid under- or
over-fermentation. Finally, the fermented coffee is washed with clean running water and soaked
in clean water to degrade and remove the remaining mucilage and acids and to improve the color
of the beans. Then the wet parchment coffee is dried in the sun on raised drying tables and sorted
at 11.5 percent moisture.