Sidama Coffee Farms
Sidama
The Sidama highlands south of Hawassa are a world-renowned specialty coffee origin, where visitors can tour smallholder coffee gardens and washing stations.
Sidama is one of Ethiopia's most famous coffee regions. Its coffees, with floral and citrus flavors, along with Yirgacheffe-style beans, enjoy a strong reputation in the international specialty coffee market. Around Aleta Wendo, roughly 50 km south of Hawassa, smallholder farmers' small coffee plots cover the hillsides, where coffee trees are intercropped with enset, the false banana. From about October to January is harvest season, when red coffee cherries are carried to washing stations to be fermented and cleaned, then spread out to dry on raised racks. Local tour operators or cooperatives can arrange visits to farms, hands-on picking, roasting, and traditional coffee ceremonies. There is no established independent-traveller route yet, so it is advisable to book a guide and hired car in advance, as rainy-season mountain roads become muddy.
Opening hours
Reservation required (best during harvest season)
Nearby sights
- Mount Tabor
- Hawassa Fish Market
- Amora Gedel Park
- Lake Hawassa
- Gudumale
- Wondo Genet Hot Springs
- Shashamane Rastafari Community
- Abijatta-Shalla Lakes National Park