Mewa Washing Station

Smallholder farmers

West Arsi

Ethiopia

Ethiopian heirloom/mixed JARC

2000masl

Natural

West Arsi zone: The West Arsi Zone is located in central-eastern Ethiopia in the country's Oromia region. Historically, West Arsi had been grouped under the Sidama coffee classification, despite not being located within the Sidama region. While these regions share similar styles, traits and a border, specialty demand and administrative adjustments eventually separated The West Arsi zone into its own coffee region, showcasing the unique local climate and geography as well as giving the West Arsi region distinct market identity. 

Parts of the West Arsi zone lie inside the floor and lowlands of Ethiopia's Great Rift Valley. The mountains, volcanoes and great lakes in the highlands help maintain a climate which has high humidity and cool temperatures. The region's sandy loam soil and ideal growing conditions at altitudes above 2000 meters above sea level all contribute to the coffee’s exceptional quality.

Mewa Washing Station: This delicious Natural Ethiopian coffee is brought to us from the smallholders of West Arsi. Specialty coffees from Ethiopia are generally traceable to a washing station level, with this one hailing from the Mewa washing station in southern Ethiopia. Approximately 650 smallholder farmers with an average farm size of 2-9 hectares deliver their handpicked cherries to the Mewa Washing station in Nensebo Woreda. Communities here live rurally and make a living from farming, using few or no agrochemicals, making the coffee naturally organic. After an initial sorting and floating of the cherries for defects the beans are dried in the sun on raised beds, where they are constantly turned to prevent spoilage.

"The birthplace of coffee": The preceding phrase gets used a lot, and although it sounds pretty self-explanatory, there is more to it than just a championship-style belt or tagline. While Ethiopia indeed exports a lot of coffee, which it has in common with many coffee nations worldwide, it hasn't taken trees from elsewhere nor cultivated them as 'cash crops' as in many other parts of the world. We can see the implications of this with particularly striking contrasts.

Usually, when we think of coffee farms, we generally think of vast, organised coffee plantations stretching as far as the eye can see. But going back to the birthplace of coffee, we see coffee's humble origins and place in domestic life. Most Ethiopian farmers are smallholder sustenance farmers, often owning less than one hectare of land. It would be more accurate to describe these farms as 'coffee gardens' with plants thriving in intercropped wild and biodiverse forest gardens.  

So this title, 'the birthplace of coffee', clearly isn't hollow--Growing, processing and drinking coffee has been a part of everyday life in Ethiopia for centuries. It carries cultural significance, history and traditions for Ethiopia and its people.