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The Bio label guarantees products from organic farming that comply with the requirements of European legislation.

The industry is segmented according to the different stages of production: growers, collectors and exporters. The growers deliver their cherries to collectors (akrabi), who own the necessary washing and drying stations to process cherries and parchment. Each collector is licenced to operate in a specific woreda (district). Growers also dry some cherries for sale to collectors of husks (djenfel), to create grade 4 and 5 natural lots. Some have their own stations and process their own cherries; these are generally farmers owning more than 35 hectares of land.&nbsp;
The collectors then deliver their lots to the ECX (Ethiopian Commodity Exchange) auction market, or directly to exporters under a vertical integration contract. Each grower, collector and exporter must have its own licence. It is possible for one person to own all licences.&nbsp;
Foreigners are not entitled to apply for a licence, but are authorised to operate as agents (Commercial Representative Office, or CRO). Those with investor status can own a plantation of at least 150 hectares and export their own production.&nbsp;

<ul>
<li>Station de lavage de Tatmara</li>
<li>Gestion de la canopée (Jimma, Kaffa)</li>
</ul>

Ethiopia is Arabica’s country of origin. It offers a rich mix of terroirs, biodiversity and practices that are unlike any other in the world of coffee. The high-altitude rainforests in the south-western region of present-day Ethiopia are where Arabica coffee originated from. Farmers still use these forests to grow coffee, in more or less complex agroforestry systems.&nbsp;
The Kaffa and Yayu biosphere reserves are now protected by UNESCO. Thousands of unidentified varieties grow there. 150 have been identified, and 35 are distributed by the Jimma Research Centre (JRC). They serve as a reservoir, a bit like a savings account, from which both JRC researchers and growers can draw to manage diseases such as rust or adapt to new growing altitudes and climate change. Wild coffee trees grow in nature at altitudes of 500 to 2,400 metres.&nbsp;
Local farmers have used their in-depth knowledge of the forests to develop original, resilient farming systems. The Jimma-Limmu-Gera, Nekemte and Kaffa appellation areas in the south-west and the Guji and West Arsi appellation areas to the south are dominated by a semi-forest system. In southern (Yirgacheffe, Sidama) and eastern (Harrar) Ethiopia, there are mostly orchards (gardens), with varying degrees of agroforestry adoption. Coffee is grown mainly in the highlands in southern and south-western Ethiopia, at altitudes ranging from 1,500 to 2,400 metres. Harvesting often coincides with the dry season, which means that all the coffees we supply can be sun-dried on tables.

The cherries are pulped and then fermented in water. Microbial activity breaks down the mucilage. After fermentation, they are washed in water to remove the remaining mucilage. The coffee is separated when it has a moisture content of 11%.

Focus on the variety 74140
NAME&nbsp;
74 (the year of its creation) &amp; 140 (sample from the mother tree, in the Metu-Bishari region).&nbsp;
CHARACTERISTICS 
The 74140 variety is found widely in Ethiopia, in the Gera, Jimma and Metu regions. It was developed by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC) in 1974. It is a high plant with broader leaves than those of other 74 varieties and dense clusters of cherries. It is particularly resistant to diseases such as rust.&nbsp;

Alaka is the name of a village located at an altitude of about 2,000 metres in the woreda of Hambela, in the Guji appellation. It is here that METAD took over the management of a beautiful coffee forest at the end of the 2010s. The area is known for its majestic trees of numerous species. Their shade, combined with rich soils, contribute to the production of a rare quality of coffee. The cherries are harvested by METAD, then dried in the sun on African beds.

The Guji appellation was during long time included in the one of Sidama. In order to better identify the quality of the coffees produced here, this name was separated a few years ago by the Ethiopian authorities who created this new appellation. Their goal was to emphasize the traceability of ethiopian coffees and to reveal more again their quality and their cupping specificities. Now, Guji appellation gives some of the best coffees in the world. In Guji, coffee is an ancient crop, cultivated within a complex forest environment. The diversity of endemic species provides optimal shade for coffee trees and improves soil fertility.

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