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

The dry method: Coffee bean is drying in the cherry, part of the drying sometimes
taking place before harvesting. Picking and drying are often the only operations undertaken
by the grower, especially for agro-forest coffee. When these have been carried out, dried
beans (janfal) addressed to central market are sent to local processing plants (hulleries) where
the dried pulp and the parchment are removed in one operation. The dried bean is then sent to
Addis Abeba, where it will be processed again in export <strong>case</strong>. Dry coffee still constitutes the
bulk of Ethiopian coffee produced but it is considered that is impossible to produce a first-
class coffee by this method, although the procedure is far simple (Banttee, 1995).
The wet method: This new procedure has been brought to Ethiopia during the 1970’s
socialist regime and is now preferred to reach quality goals and prices. The sitting of the
pulper is near a river or stream which can provide a good supply of water, and evacuation
channel, at picking time since the whole process is carried out in presence of clean water. The
pulpery or washery should be laid out so that the coffee is moving through each stage of the
process by gravity flow (Bantee, 1995). The main constraint of this method is the water
contamination inherent to rubbish then evacuated in streams feeding neighbouring
households. Moreover ripe cherries start to ferment very soon after it is picked and become
brown. So it is important to keep it in the shade and to process it as soon as possible, on the
day it is picked. Generally washeries process the coffee grown in a 20 km radius because of
that. The final product is coffee with parchment. This latter will be removed in Addis Abeba,
once coffee with parchment has been bought to the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange 6
, before
getting exported.
Illustration 5: Pulpery (akhrabie’s pulpery), Agard machine (pulper), last washing tank, and pulp
evacuation in Suntu State Farm (Bossolasco, 29 th June and 10 th October 2009)
6 Refer 6.1.1) Function and role of each actor of the value chain.
8