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800 producers organized around Dirshaye Ferenju | Dumerso Coffee Station
1800 – 1900 masl
Indigenous cultivars
Vertisol
Gedeo Zone, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Regional State, Ethiopia
Full natural and dried on raised beds
October – January
Conventional
Dumerso is a private washing station located just north of the town of Yirga Chefe, in the heart of the coveted Gedeo Zone—the narrow section of highland plateau dense with savvy farmers and fiercely competitive processors whose coffee is known the world over as “Yirgacheffe”. The Gedeo region is named after the Gedeo people who are indigenous to this area. As a coffee terroir, Yirgacheffe has for decades been considered a benchmark for beauty and complexity in arabica coffee—known for being beguilingly ornate and jasmine-like when fully washed, and seductively punchy and sweet when sundried--and hardly requires an introduction. The Dumerso station is owned and operated by Dirshaye Ferenju and his family. Dumerso’s contributing farmers number over 800, and average about four acres of farmland each. Their naturals are floral and syrupy, the result of careful sorting and drying routines executed to perfection throughout the dramatic temperature fluctuations of Yirgacheffe’s unique high-elevation climate. Private processors like Dumerso are a thing to behold. It’s a tough business being a private processor in Gedeo, as the sheer density of competition among washing stations tends to push cherry prices as high as double throughout a single harvest, and privates often don’t have the backing of a larger union to secure financing, regulate cherry prices, or bring export costs down with centralized milling and marketing. Successful private washing stations like Dumerso, then, need to be not only standout quality processors to stay afloat; they must also be excellent business developers with connections and community standing, in order to continue winning the business of farmers and buyers alike, and stay afloat for the long term.