Dry Process Yirga Cheffe is a rather new coffee. What you have bought from us in the past is Bagersh Misty Valley dry-processed coffee from the Gedio zone, Idido Yirga-Cheffe. With the new ECX coffee exchange rules for Ethiopia coffee exports, all lots (with an exception for FTO cooperative coffees) are made anonymous when they enter the Government warehouse. That means we do not know exactly which cooperative or mill this lot is from. We know it is a Yirga Cheffe, a Grade 3 (which means little - see my notes on the grading system), and nobody needs to tell us it is a dry-process. One look at the coffee, one sniff of the fragrance when grinding, and you WILL know. While making lots anonymous has been a setback for us, and out coffee relationships in Ethiopia are on hold, a solution is in the works for next harvest ... and it doesn't mean great lots suddenly disappeared. The great coffees are still there, we just know less about them. I would hazard a guess here that this is a Gedio zone lot, which is the best area to do natural (dry-process) coffee in Yirga Cheffe, and that it might be from Idido town district as well. As you know, the tradition in Yirga-cheffe. is wet-processing, whereas Harar has a dry-processing tradition. Wet-processing is the method used in Central America and the like, resulting in a green seed with a cleaner cup profile, and less earthy or rustic cup flavors. Dry-processing involves drying the entire coffee cherry in the sun, and later removing the skin, fruity mucilage layer and protective parchment shell that surrounds the green seed ... all in one fell swoop. Excellent dry-processed coffees are difficult because the milling method for wet-processing allows for separation of ripe and unripe coffee cherry (and other defective seeds) using water and machines. But in dry-processing, sorting you under-ripes is done visually, either by sorting the ripe cherry, or later, sorting the "green" bean. (You probably know from experience with Harar and the like that the dry-processed green bean is in fact yellow, mostly because it has more of the silverskin, the chaff, still attached to it). The problem in Ethiopia is this: traditional dry-processed coffee is NOT pre-sorted to include only ripe red coffee cherry and it is sun-dried in a rather haphazard fashion. The difference with this lot is night and day (as an experienced eye can see when you look at the unroasted coffee), this originates with ripe cherry, is uniformly screen-dried in the sun, and has been dry-milled using the same screen and density-sorting techniques as wet-processed lots. The result is outstanding. The dry fragrance are heavily fruited, with intense blueberry and apricot jam scents and vanilla wafer sweetness. The wet aroma is sweet like syrup, saturated with raw honey. It has peach and apricot in the lighter roasts, and more berry like at FC roast. The cup is fantastically fruited. Light roasts have apricot jam, hints of blueberry, passion fruit, red licorice, vanilla wafer cookie and anise. A bit darker on the roast and the fruits are more berry-like and juicy, with many of the lighter roast flavors still present to some extent. As it cools, lemony citrus comes out, or rather a honey-sweetened unfiltered homemade lemonade.

This coffee is part of our direct trade Farm Gate pricing transparency program.

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Yirga Cheffe coffees are a renowned wet-processed type with delicate floral and fruit brightness in the cup. As a sub-region of Sidamo, Yirga Cheffe seemed like quite a specific designation several years ago, but times are changing in the coffee world. As small buyers of micro-lots start to travel to coffee origins more, our ability to designate the source of our coffees becomes more specific. And now we have started to find, within the Yirga Cheffe area, special regions with particular cup character. Comically, this lot does not represent that type of coffee; it's an old style pooled Yirga Cheffe by Moplaco Export, one that passed through the new Ethiopia Coffee Exchange (ECX) so that we aren't sure of it's exact origin within the Yirga Cheffe region. However, I thought it was a really, really nice coffee upon cupping it! The fact the ECX has become more of an obstacle than an aid in sourcing great coffee is still true, but there are exceptions. After all, really nice lots still exist and go to the exchange, and while we don't know the exact Coop or Private mill it comes from, it's still the same coffee. It just takes a lot of cupping to find them. Dry grounds have a distinct lemon cookie scent, with floral and honey sweet scents. The wet aromatics are fantastic; very sweet honeysuckle blossom, honey-butter, sugar cane, orange and even a zest of crushed spearmint. The cup has a soft, full mouthfeel, and ample sweetness. It's a surprisingly silky body for a Yirga Cheffe, which can sometimes be a little thin. Apricot and peach notes emerge, sweet stone fruits, along with the honey and floral notes found in the aromatics. As it cools, robust jasmine notes come to the foreground, along with sweetened apricot tea. It's a remarkable, aromatic coffee with complex estery high notes. I tested 5 roasts and would say that 3 of them were 95+ coffees, 1 was 92, 1 was 90. So it is roast sensitive, even in the recommended City to City+ range. But every roast was extremely good, and, based on very slight differences, some were exceptional It also does incredibly well as an aromatic component in espresso!



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