Community Projects

Sinar Moisture Analyser – Guji Masina

As fun as it might be to measure moisture content of green beans by chewing through dried cherry pods and parchment, we thought a more technology-based tool might be helpful for the team at the ZB Washing Station, Ethiopia.
Providing a Sinar Moisture Analyser to regulate cherry quality during processing and drying phases to the community in Guji Ethiopia as part of our community projects

Project Origin worked closely with the farmers and station managers at the ZB Washing Station in Masina, Guji to help improve their consistency. By introducing new technologies and equipment, we hoped that the traditional methods of biting the dried cherry pods and green beans to estimate moisture content can now be backed up and improved with specific data that the team can rely upon to create consistent natural and washed lots each year.

In 2017, we helped fund the washing station’s construction and infrastructure that would be used for carbonic maceration processing. As we developed new and exciting specialty coffees at this station, Project Origin was keen to collaborate in ways to help the station manager and workers maintain their consistency across all the green beans produced here. Following the work on the carbonic maceration process infrastructure, leading up to the 2018/19 harvest we provided the station with a Sinar Moisture Analyser. This tool allows a more accurate reading of moisture content in coffees during processing. This has been especially helpful for the natural processed coffees, as the traditional moisture metre methods of chewing seeds for tactile readings were not as accurate at giving information for dried cherry pods.

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