Arsosala is a washing station founded in 2015 that currently serves about 1,200 smallholder producers in the Urga woreda (district) of Guji, a beautifully forested area in southern Ethiopia. Before the early 2000s, this region was considered part of Sidama but has since become its own ‘independent’ one.

Growers here tend small coffee gardens at very high altitudes in the rich red soil of the highlands; they often grow other crops as well. As commonly happens in the rest of the country, smallholders deliver their coffee in cherry to the closest washing station—in this case, Arsosala—where their coffee will be sorted, weighed, paid for or given a receipt, and later processed in bulk.

Blending all these cherries (typically separated or tagged per day lots) makes it virtually impossible under normal circumstances to know the producers participating in each bag; that’s why the coffees are sold under and referred to the name the washing station.

The cherries of this lot were picked ripe and de-pulped the same day, then fermented overnight before being washed clean and dried on raised beds (it typically takes the coffee 8–15 days to dry under sun and 15–20 days to dry when there are cloudy skies).

The ‘special preparation’ refers to an additional inspection during hand-sorting stage, just before the fermentation starts, to make sure only the ripest cherries make it to this lot.

All the images and information about this coffee and its producers have been kindly shared by the importer, Cafe Imports, and edited by us, Sample Coffee (unless linked to or credited otherwise).

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