Description
Testi Ayla Washing Station was founded in 2009 and serves about 310 smallholder
farmers in the area around Bombe village, in the woreda of Bensa.
Coffees in Ethiopia are typically traceable to the washing station level: The average
producer here farms on 1/4–1/2 a hectare of land and delivers their cherry to the
washing station, where it is blended with other producers’ deliveries and processed
as necessary. Here, the Naturals are picked ripe, rinsed clean, and then dried in
their cherry on raised beds for 15–21 days. According to the washing station
manager, washed coffees at Testi Ayla are depulped the day that they are
delivered and fermented underwater for six days. They are washed clean and
spread on raised beds for 10–12 days.