Ethiopia Shanta Golba Washed

Shanta Golba is a washing station located in the Bensa region of Sidama, Ethiopia, near Daye Bensa Village. Coffee is harvested here from November through January, and over 1,200 smallholder farmers deliver their coffee to this station. Besides coffee, most of these farmers also cultivate enset, bananas, oranges, and have various indigenous natural shade trees on their land. Shanta Golba adheres to strict ripe cherry specifications and generally uses coffee from the middle to end of the harvest for the highest grades, as these are typically grown at higher elevations. Coffee here usually dries for about 18 days, thanks to the natural shade trees covering the raised beds. In Ethiopia, coffee is typically grown on small plots of land alongside other crops. Most smallholders deliver their coffee in cherry form to a nearby washing station or central processing unit, where it is sorted, weighed, and either paid for or given a receipt. The coffee is then processed—washed or natural—and dried on raised beds. Washing stations often serve several hundred to over a thousand producers, blending cherries from different sources throughout the harvest season. This blending makes it difficult to trace individual producers' coffee precisely. However, efforts are made to source coffee from the same washing stations each year through export partners and their connections with mills and washing stations. Typically, farmers in this region do not have access to or use fertilizers or pesticides in coffee production.