Ethiopia Dry Process Korate

This lot was processed at a privately run coffee processing site called Korate (also the name of the village), very near to Dari Kidame area, in Western Guji. The farmers who deliver to the Korate mill have coffee planted in high altitude zones nearby that span a range of 1900 - 2100 meters above sea level. They only produce dry processed coffees at this site ("naturals"), and with a capacity of up to 2 shipping containers a season (roughly 80k # of green coffee). That's a lot of coffee, however, it's actually on the small side for Ethiopia! The mill has registered more than 116 small farmers in total from the villages bordering the site, most with an average farm size of 2 hectares of coffee or less. Farmers are paid a higher rate for delivering only ripe cherries, which means less hand labor at the drying beds, and ultimately, a cleaner sorted coffee. Mill workers also mitigate unripe coffee by "floating" the coffee cherries in water. Generally, unripe coffee floats while the ripe coffee sinks. This makes removal quite easy, and a first step in grading. The coffee is then moved to raised drying beds for around 3 to 4 weeks time, until dried to around 11% moisture content.