The Ayla washing station near Bensa Daye, Ethiopia is set in a picturesque hillside. It's drying beds laid out in grassy fields surrounded on three sides by a small river. This river provides water for the fermenting and washing of the coffees at the Ayla mill, while also keeping the shaded drying beds cool in comparison to the surrounding hillsides.

This washing station processes coffees from 725 organic coffee growers. This startling number is not due to the size of the Ayla washing station; it's fairly small, but because coffee growing in Ethiopia is decentralized. Where large coffee producing countries often keep massive farms where all the steps of production are taken care of, coffee in Ethiopia is grown on small plots owned by different community members. These plots are sometimes no larger than a community garden would be here in the U.S., and coffee from all of these plots ends up at the nearest washing station.

That means that the coffee here that we're offering is the culmination of a community, born from the work and expertise of the professionals at the Ayla mill as well as the community of small growing operations that surround it.