Ethiopia - Ayla Shentawane

The Ayla Washing Station, situated in the village of Shantawene within Ethiopia's Sidama region, is a notable hub for specialty coffee production. Operated by Testi Coffee, a family-owned enterprise founded by Faysel A. Yonis, Ayla is one of several stations under their management, processing coffees from nearby villages including Bombe and Shentawane.

Coffees in Ethiopia are typically grown on very small plots of land by farmers who also grow other crops. The majority of smallholders will deliver their coffee in cherry to a nearby washing station or central processing unit, where their coffee will be sorted, weighed, and paid for or given a receipt. Coffee is then processed, usually washed or natural, by the washing station and dried on raised beds. 

The washing stations serve as many as several hundred to sometimes a thousand or more producers, who deliver cherry throughout the harvest season: The blending of these cherries into day lots makes it virtually

impossible under normal circumstances to know precisely whose coffee winds up in which bags on what day, making traceability to the producer difficult.

Among coffee-producing countries, Ethiopia holds near-legendary status not only because it’s the “birthplace” of Arabica coffee, but also because it is simply unlike every other place in the coffee world. Unlike the vast majority of coffee-growing countries, the plant was not introduced as a cash crop through colonization. Instead, growing, processing, and drinking coffee is part of the everyday way of life, and has been for centuries, since the trees were discovered growing wild in forests and eventually cultivated for household use and commercial sale.

The Sidama region is popular for producing the biggest number of high-quality coffees in Ethiopia. This region is situated in fertile mountains, where half of the land is cultivated which explains the high quality of the coffee produced there. The surrounding rivers and lakes at this high altitude provides for a cool weather and fertile soil. Those natural factors, combined with over 100 inches of rain yearly, makes the coffee ripe slower that in any other region in Ethiopia.

Natural coffees are typically delivered the day they are harvested, and are first sorted for ripeness and quality before being rinsed clean of dirt. Then they are spread on raised drying beds or tables, where they will be rotated constantly throughout the course of drying. Drying can take an average of 8-25 days, depending on the weather.

Heirloom is often used to refer to varieties that are native to the country, many of which are still found in the wild today. It is estimated that there are between 10,000 and 15,000 heirloom varieties in Ethiopia today.