The Sidamo region is located about 270 km from Addis Ababa in the East African Great Rift Valley, which runs through Ethiopia and Kenya to Mozambique, and was named after its inhabitants. The rich volcanic soil present in the region gives the coffee trees all the nutrients they need to develop their typical cup profile.

In Sidamo, coffee is grown exclusively by smallholder farmers. At altitudes varying between 1,550 and 2,200 metres, they harvest around 37,000 tonnes of coffee annually, on a total of 70,000 hectares. Since the producers are very small, they rely on their families and hardly employ any harvest workers. The red cherries are delivered to various smallholder-led cooperatives, to be processed. The vast majority of the cherries (95%) are fully-washed and sun-dried on raised beds.