From Cafe Imports

Arsosala

Arsosala is a washing station founded in 2015 that currently serves about 1,200 smallholder producers in the Uraga woreda of Guji. Coffees are picked ripe and depulped the same day, then fermented overnight before being washed clean and dried on raised beds. It typically takes the coffee 8–15 days to dry under sun and 15–20 days to dry when there are cloudy skies.

Coffees in Ethiopia are typically grown on very small plots of land by farmers who also grow other crops. The majority of smallholders will deliver their coffee in cherry to a nearby washing station or central processing unit, where their coffee will be sorted, weighed, and paid for or given a receipt. Coffee is then processed, usually washed or natural, by the washing station and dried on raised beds.

The washing stations serve as many as several hundred to sometimes a thousand or more producers, who deliver cherry throughout the harvest season: The blending of these cherries into day lots makes it virtually impossible under normal circumstances to know precisely whose coffee winds up in which bags on what day, making traceability to the producer difficult. We do, however, make every available effort to source coffee from the same washing stations every year, through our export partners and their connections with mills and washing stations.

Typically farmers in this region don't have access to and therefore do not utilize fertilizers or pesticides in the production of coffee

Washed Special Prep

With the special prep (what the producers generally call “Premium” in Ethiopia) the cherries are collected from a limited number of small-holder farmers. 

90% of the cherries are perfectly picked, the right red color. 5% semi red and 5% overripe. 

All of it is processed and stored it separately from the other lots. They generally produce a very small number of bags in this way every year. 

In most instances, cherries used to produce these lots are collected from a day lot (picked in one day). 

The process of producing Washed coffees in Ethiopia will vary slightly from washing station to washing station, but generally speaking the coffee is picked ripe and depulped the same day. There is usually a fermentation period of 8–12 hours in open-air tanks, then washed in water channels to remove the mucilage. The coffee seeds will be spread on raised beds to dry for 5–15 days, depending on the weather.