Massive ripe stone fruit flavours, interlaced with bright orange and lime notes that hint at sour lollies. The complex aftertaste combines notes of dried berry fruits and floral chamomile.
This coffee comes from the Konga Kebele, deep in Ethiopia's Yirgacheffe District – a place that needs little introduction to anyone who's spent time exploring African coffees. Yirgacheffe has a reputation for producing some of the most distinctive and expressive coffees on the planet, and this one is a fine example of why.
Around 800 smallholder farmers contribute to this lot, each tending roughly 2 hectares of land at altitudes between 1,800 and 2,000 metres above sea level. The farms are shade-grown, which slows down fruit development and gives the coffee time to build that layered complexity you'll find in the cup. The red-brown soils here are fertile and free-draining, and with consistent temperatures and generous annual rainfall, the conditions are about as close to ideal as it gets.
Cherries are hand-picked during harvest – running from mid-October through to the end of January – and delivered directly to the local processing station. From there, the coffee undergoes a fully washed process: depulped, fermented for 36 to 48 hours depending on the weather, then laid out on raised African drying beds for 10 to 15 days, raked throughout the day to ensure an even, consistent dry. It's a careful, considered process, and it shows.
- Country: Ethiopia
- Zone: Gedeo
- District (Woreda): Yirgacheffe
- Kebele: Konga
- Altitude: 1,800 – 2,000 m.a.s.l
- Botanical cultivars: Heirloom
- Process: Washed
- Producers: 800 smallholders
- Harvested: October-January
- Fermentation time: 36-48 hours
- Drying method: African raised beds
- Drying time: 10-15 days
- Average annual rainfall: 1,800-2,000mm
- Average temperature: 20-25ºC