A study case on coffee (Coffea arabica): Limu Coffe - IRD

The export coffee test, Addis Abeba
Exporters bring their coffee from their warehouse or the ECX export warehouse.
Samples are then tested as they are during the arrival coffee test. The difference is that even if
this CLU is included in the same Coffee Processing and Warehouse Enterprise facilities, it is
under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development authority.
First room: the coding room. The exporter certificate of competence and his sample
are presented, and a CODING TICKET printed.
Second room: the sampling room. The former ticket follows the sample, and mentions
its export market (final export destination). Defects are classified then measured; moisture
content is measured. Samples of 300 g are prepared for cuppers.
Third room: the roasting room. Here 250 ml of boiled water are mixed with 10 g of
roasted/grinded coffee per cup.
Fourth room: the laboratory of cupping. Many cuppers cup the same coffee to give a
collective profile. The number of cups used during the test is not the same as for the arrival
test. Here seven cups are used for washed coffee cupping and eight for unwashed coffee.
Once the export test is accomplished, two documents are filled:
- The “Coffee & Tea Quality Control & Liquoring Center washed/unwashed coffee
export classification report”
- The “Ethiopian washed/unwashed coffee export certificate” which is added to the
export certificate of competence. Both permit the exporter to send his coffee to Djibouti.
The arrival coffee CLU and the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange point out coffees
according to their origin using letters and processing quality using numbers from 1 to 9. This
vocabulary disappeared at the benefit of quality grading numbers used by the international
export classification as Limu 2 or Harar 4. Indeed the processing quality gets the better of
origin in the long term, and definitely due to the behaviour of conventional coffee importers
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