Wadi Kuraba Natural

Wadi Kuraba has our biggest drying station outside of Sana’a. It has a capacity of 20 tons per season and we process around 500 kg of fresh coffee cherries daily. Located at 2150 MASL, with temperatures fluctuating between 24ºC and 7ºC, we have adapted our processing methods to dry the cherries to their best advantage, which produces this great coffee.

During the harvest, producers begin by selectively handpicking only the reddest cherries. A single farmer may pass a tree several times during each harvest, making sure cherries are only picked when they are at their most ripe. Once picked, the cherries are transported to one of Sheba’s regional processing hubs. The cherries are next placed into baths of cool, clean water, cleaning and sorting the quality cherries from any floaters or debris.

Once clean, the cherries are dried. For this lot, multiple drying methods are used, such as raised beds and greenhouses. For the raised beds, the coffee is dried for an average of two to three weeks and turned daily, making sure they are dried evenly. Once a moisture level of between 11-12% is recorded, the beans are removed from their beds and placed into airtight bags, helping protect them from oxidization or contamination from foreign matter or air pollution.

Next, the coffee is transported to Sheba’s processing centre. Here, the dried cherries are rested for between 1 and 2 months; before being hulled of their cherry. Once hulled, the beans are passed through a gravity sorter, sieved by screen size and hand-sorted, removing any remaining defects. Once complete, the coffees are graded and bagged, ready for export.