The road to Djibouti.
Ethiopia is landlocked, so nearly every exported bean travels about 900 km from Addis Ababa to the port of Djibouti. Two to four days by road, closer to a day and a half by rail. Why that sits inside every arrival date.
Ethiopia is landlocked. Almost every exported bean travels roughly 900 kilometres from Addis Ababa to the port of Djibouti. By road that is two to four days. By rail it is closer to a day and a half.
What sits inside the phrase
When a lot sheet says FOB Djibouti, that whole journey is already inside it. Milling, bagging, trucking the corridor, customs, and loading. When an exporter promises an arrival month, this road is the reason the date can move. A delay at the mill or a queue at the port does not announce itself in the price.
Why the corridor is where the risk is
It is also the stretch where most avoidable damage happens, and where a container is still reachable. Coffee is hygroscopic: day and night temperature swings move moisture between the beans, the air and the walls of a steel container, where it condenses and can drip back onto the bags. Published work links transit conditions to moisture change and to ochratoxin A. Very few shipments are measured for any of it.
What runs today, and what does not
What we do today is specify the defence before the doors close: hermetic liners inside the jute, calcium chloride desiccant sized to the load, and moisture and water activity confirmed at origin. What we are still building is the instrumented container that records the voyage and hands you the curve. We have not selected a device and we will not name one until we have, which is why it appears on our trust page as in build rather than as a service.
Plan backwards from the calendar on the origins page: picking runs October to January, milling and grading carry into spring, and fresh crop lands mid-year.