THE COFFEESHOP ETHIOPIA / Samii Danche #3

Danche is an organic-certified washing station located in Chelbesa, within the Gedeo zone. The station purchases coffee cherries from approximately 400 smallholder farmers in the surrounding area. Thanks to its extremely high altitude (2,000 to 2,300 meters) and fertile soil, it consistently produces high-quality coffee in considerable quantities every year.

Due to its high-altitude location, the harvest season here is usually later than in other regions. The long cherry maturation period is precisely the key factor that imparts the unique flavor profile to the coffee from this processing plant.

Harvesting and Processing Techniques

Strict Selection: After manual harvesting, coffee cherries are immediately hand-sorted to ensure that only ripe fruits proceed to subsequent stages.

Pulping: The selected cherries are directly fed into a hopper connected to a pulper (a traditional Agardhe disc pulper). While removing the skin and pulp, the machine also performs initial sorting based on the coffee beans' **density**.

Wet Fermentation: The coffee beans are then soaked in water tanks for an average of 72 hours of fermentation.

Secondary Sorting: After fermentation, the coffee beans undergo another density sorting in water channels – low-quality beans that float on the surface are removed, and only high-density, high-quality beans that sink are separated to form high-quality batches.

Drying Process

Finally, the parchment coffee is thoroughly washed with clean water and spread on **African drying beds** for approximately 8 to 20 days. To ensure even drying, workers carefully turn the coffee beans, spread in layers 2 to 8 cm thick, according to weather conditions, bed type, and drying progress.