During harvest season, which spans from October to January, six to seven hundred families of smallholders choose to sell their crop to Aricha. The coffee cherries arriving at the station are sorted by hand and then placed on raised drying beds in thin layers. The cherries are turned every 2 to 3

hours in the first few days to avoid over-fermentation and mold growth. Depending on the weather, 4 to 6 weeks later the beans are transported to Addis Ababa, to BNT Coffee’s central warehouse, where the final hulling, sorting and export preparation takes place.