Ethiopia Aricha Idido Natural Anaerobic
$24.00 – $112.00
This is our first new crop natural Ethiopia of the season, and holy smokes, it is killer. When we look to purchase naturals, we are generally looking for plenty of fruit, along with cleanliness. And if we really get greedy, we look for particular kinds of fruit–more pink and yellow and purple, rather than red. And this coffee? It ticks all the boxes. Indeed, I might have more difficulty constructing a natural Ethiopia in my head than what we have here in the cup.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The coffee comes from the Aricha washing station in Yirgacheffe, with coffee cherry delivered from the area of Idido, to the east of Yirgacheffe town. For you specialty coffee oldsters, Aricha station was the birthplace of the “Misty Valley” natural–one of the first consistently blueberry-forward naturals coming out of Ethiopia over a decade ago. Since then, the mill has changed hands a number of times, but the quality of the coffee being delivered to it has remained top-tier. The altitudes are soaring, requiring that the coffee trees struggle a bit to grow and ripen fruit. The idea is that this results in dense beans with concentrated flavor. (You can see that these beans are tiny!) The mill is financed by Bune Sinappii, or SNAP Specialty Coffee, as they are known. The dry mill outside of Addis is top-notch as well.
The dry grounds are perfumed, suggesting something along the lines of strawberry rhubarb pie. In the cup, the flavors and aromatics are all over the place. We had a hard time pinning down descriptors, but the general consensus was that drinking the coffee was more like drinking perfume than fruit. There are all sorts of purple and pink fruits and florals, and tropicals in the yellow/orange range. And while the coffee was fermented anaerobically for more than four days, it doesn’t exhibit the hallmark fudgy characteristics of the process. Instead, it just feels like the fruit and florals were turned up a notch. It remains clear and precise.
Enjoy!
Location: Yirgacheffe, Idido
Elevation: 2000-2200 MASL
Varietal: heirloom
Process: anaerobic natural
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
This is our first new crop natural Ethiopia of the season, and holy smokes, it is killer. When we look to purchase naturals, we are generally looking for plenty of fruit, along with cleanliness. And if we really get greedy, we look for particular kinds of fruit–more pink and yellow and purple, rather than red. And this coffee? It ticks all the boxes. Indeed, I might have more difficulty constructing a natural Ethiopia in my head than what we have here in the cup.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The coffee comes from the Aricha washing station in Yirgacheffe, with coffee cherry delivered from the area of Idido, to the east of Yirgacheffe town. For you specialty coffee oldsters, Aricha station was the birthplace of the “Misty Valley” natural–one of the first consistently blueberry-forward naturals coming out of Ethiopia over a decade ago. Since then, the mill has changed hands a number of times, but the quality of the coffee being delivered to it has remained top-tier. The altitudes are soaring, requiring that the coffee trees struggle a bit to grow and ripen fruit. The idea is that this results in dense beans with concentrated flavor. (You can see that these beans are tiny!) The mill is financed by Bune Sinappii, or SNAP Specialty Coffee, as they are known. The dry mill outside of Addis is top-notch as well.
The dry grounds are perfumed, suggesting something along the lines of strawberry rhubarb pie. In the cup, the flavors and aromatics are all over the place. We had a hard time pinning down descriptors, but the general consensus was that drinking the coffee was more like drinking perfume than fruit. There are all sorts of purple and pink fruits and florals, and tropicals in the yellow/orange range. And while the coffee was fermented anaerobically for more than four days, it doesn’t exhibit the hallmark fudgy characteristics of the process. Instead, it just feels like the fruit and florals were turned up a notch. It remains clear and precise.
Enjoy!
Location: Yirgacheffe, Idido
Elevation: 2000-2200 MASL
Varietal: heirloom
Process: anaerobic natural