Ethiopia, the long journey from the washing station to your roastery.

​The long journey of coffee has come to an end. It has been several months of arduous effort in which thousands of hands have worked together for a single goal, the production of coffee of the highest possible quality. Although the logistical situation has improved compared to last year, the departure from Ethiopia to Djibouti is chaotic and slow, which risks affecting the quality of the coffee and its moisture content.

​Ethiopia, the world's second largest producer of "arabica only" after Colombia, has only one harvest per year and in a very limited period of time. Producing so much coffee in such a short time is a major challenge, especially when there are deficiencies in such important aspects as infrastructure, capital flows, inflation, climate change and the lack of organisation so characteristic of Africa, but particularly present in Ethiopia.

​This accumulation of deficiencies leads to problems. It creates bottlenecks at the washing stations when farmers deliver the cherries, and also during the pulping, fermentation and washing process; and then in the African beds during drying, which are never sufficient to support the huge volumes of coffee that come in every day. It takes a high level of organisation and numbers of people to be able to carry out this titanic task. Despite scarce resources and infrastructure, Ethiopia manages to produce some of the most exquisite cups in the world.
 
We have tried to come up with the lowest possible prices, although these have been greatly affected by inflation, and we have never paid as much for 1 kg of cherry as we have this season. Unfortunately, these record prices are of little benefit to coffee growers, as with inflation rates of 35%, this increase in cherry prices does little or no more than compensate, and some coffee growers are worse off than last year. Inflation only eats away at the wages, especially of the poorest people, in this case the coffee farmers.