Ethiopia Guji Goro Bedessa

The coffee comes from small holder coffee farmers in the Goro Bedessa Woreda of Hambela Wamena, a high altitude region that tops out at 2100 meters above sea level. These lots are made up of coffee from several hundred different farmers, most with only a couple hundred coffee trees or less. The people in this region are known as Guji Oromo, and coffee farming has been a core part of the culture in the highland areas for many years. It's a distinct coffee from Yirga Cheffe, and Sidamo. Geographically, culturally, and in terms of cup flavors, these southern coffees have a different flavor profile while maintaining the same general characteristics; citrus and floral accents, a lively cup character. The station is run by Ismael Hassen from Kayon Mountain coffee, a name you might be familiar with from coffees of previous years. They do a fantastic job controlling quality, consistently providing us with some of our top scoring Ethiopian coffees. Sorting out imperfect coffee cherry starts on delivery, and extends all the way to the drying tables. Farmers must hand sort the cherry for defects before delivering to the washing station. The cherry is then floated in tanks of water to catch any underripe coffee before the processing begins. This particular lot was wet-processed, often simply called "washed". In this process, the cherry is first removed from the seed using a depulping machine. Then, the sticky mucilage layer that surrounds the bean is removed by fermenting it for 24-36 hours in water, after which it is "washed" away with clean water. Finally, the coffee is dried on raised beds for upwards of 2 weeks, depending on the weather. We spotted what look like 14 screen size coffee, which are quite small. That said, we tested a batch in the Behmor and none slipped through the grid drum.