Review on Post-Harvest Processing Operations Affecting Coffee (Coffea Arabica L.) Quality in Ethiopia

Coffee is the most important crop in the national economy of Ethiopia and continues to be still the leading export commodity. Despite the economic importance, productivity and quality of the crop is very low. Improper post harvest processing techniques such as harvesting immature cherries, lack of sorting during grading and processing, improper drying without considering drying time, drying place, thickness layer and drying material, transportation, storage, over fermentation etc largely contribute to the decline in coffee quality of Ethiopia. It is widely agreed that traditional hand-picking and husbandry labor, as opposed to mechanical harvest, produce the best quality green coffee by decreasing the percentage of defects in coffee batches. Then, depending on the postharvest process, strong consequences on coffee quality can be observed. However, lack of information on the effects of post harvest processing and drying on quality necessitates a comprehensive study. Therefore, work was carried out to review such constraints that affect coffee quality and to give more emphasis especially in small scale coffee production of Ethiopia for exporting premium quality coffee in higher percentage. Keywords: Coffee post harvest, Coffee quality DOI: 10.7176/JEES/9-12-04 Publication date: December 31st 201