Ethiopia Bookissa

The Sawana drying station, nestled in the hills of Shakiso, Guji, was established in 2022. Before its construction, coffee from Bookkisa and Shoondhisa was processed at a single station. Since 2022, Sawana has been purchasing cherries from about 30 smallholder farmers to produce the cherished Bookkisa coffee. Unlike Latin America, where farmers can own large farms with thousands of coffee trees, Ethiopian growers typically manage small plots, often harvesting coffee from their gardens alongside subsistence crops. The average Ethiopian farm size is 2.5 hectares, which is larger than the average farm in Colombia.

However, the planting density in Ethiopia is much lower, with most production occurring in fully or semi-forested systems. This results in fewer trees per hectare and lower yield per tree (the national average being an astonishingly low 0.8 kg of cherry per tree per year).

All cherries delivered to Sawana are organically produced.