A close-up of the pulper. Cherries enter through the bottom, where the corkscrew-shaped mechanism feeds them up into the rotating teeth that do the work. This machine uses only 6 litres of water per hour. (Compared to up to 3000 L of water in traditional wet washing!) The machine costs about $5K, but the cost is easily recouped during production. You can also wash beans by soaking (or fermenting) them up to 48 hours in a bath of water. The skins and pulp will then break down by virtue of a natural chemical process. But if you let them ferment too long, it can result in nasty acids in the final cup of coffee. Using these machines reduces or eliminates this risk. Machine de-pulping can put considerable stress on the parchment (the thin shell layer between the pulp and the bean), which needs to stay intact during drying to protect the bean, so careful calibration of the pulping machine is essential, to prevent damage or shock to the bean. "Beans are still little living creatures when they first come off the tree for processing."-- Willem Boot

I've had really good coffee in Ethiopia. Some of it was hand brewed, especially in the smaller towns: people would roast the coffee beans over coals, then crush them by hand. The coffee was then brewed over the same coals used in the roasting.

In the restaurants, however, there are espresso machines. This shot is from a bar of one of the many hotels in Lalibela. I forget which hotel it was, but it seemed to be one of the larger, more expensive ones aimed at foreign tourists rather than locals.