This delicious gourmet coffee is produced in the region of Yirga Cheffe, one of the most distinguished … But the roasters and their exporter/importer partners appear to have achieved that with the twelve coffees reviewed here, which together give a fine and varied account of this striking coffee type. Ethiopian Coffee is among the worlds most unusual, offering a range of flavors from winey to fruity. I'm a Specialty Coffee Roastmaster with many years of experience in the coffee industry. One cupping does not a generalization make, but such consistency does invite attention. Kenneth Davids is a coffee expert, author and co-founder of Coffee Review. Coffee originated in Ethiopia. Each product promises you a brew reflecting the true, high-quality bean typical of Ethiopia. The citrus can be ripe and orangy, richly lemony, or sometimes bittersweet, similar to the bergamot used to flavor Earl Grey tea. Ethiopian Coffee Types, Tastes and the Ethiopian Coffee Ritual. He has been involved with coffee since the early 1970s and has published three books on coffee, including the influential Home Roasting: Romance and Revival, now in its second edition, and Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying, which has sold nearly 250,000 copies over five editions. Now you can make Ethiopian coffee the traditional way. Roasted By: Wild Foods. What we are calling cocoa can be rather chocolaty or drier and more nut-like. Ethiopian Yirgacheffe is soft, with floral tones and is one of the best choices for iced coffee. Generally, the bean is grown, hand-picked, and processed … According to some well versed coffee lovers out there, this country produces the most pure kind of coffee. This cup of soft, fragrant coffee has a distinctive flavor that is both exotic and classic. But old habits die hard, so we now see both Sidamo and Sidama used on sacks of green coffee as well as on retail bags of roasted beans. Ethiopian coffee is rich with a distinct flavor and aroma due to genotypic and geographical factors such as altitude, soil composition, temperature, rainfall, topography, and ecology. Take these portable bags of freeze-dried Ethiopian coffee with you anywhere. Since the 19th century the term Sidamo has been used by the coffee industry to describe coffee that had been grown in a quite large area of southern Ethiopia. Notes: Grown in the Guji region of Sidamo Province, this Ethiopian coffee is a dry- or "natural-" processed coffee, meaning the beans were dried inside the fruit rather than after the fruit was removed, as is the case with wet-processed or "washed" coffees. Its features are shared by many fine coffees of the Arabica species, but it is only expressed in its fullest intensity and range in the best wet-processed Ethiopias, and in the striking (and much more expensive) coffees produced by the Ethiopian-heritage Geisha or Gesha variety now emerging in Panama and elsewhere in Central America. Other africans tend to be fruity too, but less. One taste of an excellent Ethiopian coffee and you will understand this passion for the bean. One of the striking outcomes of our reviews is a strong implication that a classic medium roast (a roast concluded toward the middle of the interval between the first and second crack) best develops the virtues of the typical southern Ethiopia washed coffee. The majority of the crop does not even leave the country and is drunk with great ceremony by the Ethiopian people. Such a tight clustering of roast color among coffees at the top of the ratings is unusual. In the mid 1990s the Ethiopian government changed regional boundaries and names, eliminating Sidamo Province, and in 2008 the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX) officially changed the name of coffee traded from this area to Sidama. Nonetheless, once this fundamental aromatic repertoire is understood and accepted, one notices striking variations, variations that we have tried to highlight in our reviews. 2011 The Coffee Review. Naturally processed, Organic Ethiopia Sidamo produces a soft and light body when brewed. The regal coffees from this country are deserving of such a heritage and stand up to the calling. Ethiopian coffee is known for its fruitier unique taste with hints of blueberry. Sidamo green coffee beansare often less expensive than their Yirgacheffe counterparts, but reflect a better value in terms of price-to-quality. Consequently, those newcomers who sample from the twelve exceptional Ethiopia wet-processed coffees reviewed this month can expect something different from the coffee experience they are accustomed to, though it is a something different that shares certain common sensory tendencies. The coffee from Ethiopia is so good that Ethiopians consume half of it. Paul Arnephy, co-founder of Café Lomi, at a traditional coffee ceremony in Ethiopia.Credit: Mikael Portanier. Of course roast has an impact on how the Ethiopia wet-processed profile works out in the cup. A good Sidamois well-balanced with cupping notes exhibiting berries and citrus (lemony) with complex acidity. Every day he would take his goats to different pastures to graze. Cup Profile: Yergacheffes are Floral and Citrusy. Citrusy profiles are typically more brightly acidy than profiles in which the flowers or the cocoa/nut dominate; floral profiles are generally sweeter and ar… (After all, Guatemala and Honduras are much closer to the States than any African coffee-growing region is, and it's easier for us to buy from them than to … Combined with flavors of spice … View Full P rofile. Go To Specialty-Coffee-Advisor HOME PAGE. Although coffee is grown and produced in a number of countries in the Coffee Belt around the globe, few are able to rival Ethiopia’s unique and wonderful flavors. With the exception of Belize, Central America as a whole is a large contributor to the global coffee supply, and along with its southerly neighbor Colombia, coffee from this region of the world is what has most informed the North American coffee-drinking preferences and habits. and trademark 2011 - 2019, Specialty coffee advisor  LLc  |. Taste. Not surprising, in a country that’s been drinking coffee for more than 10 centuries. One can only hope that the well-meaning innocence of some who work purely on the commercial or technical side of coffee doesn’t lead to a dilution of the singular and extraordinary beauty of Yirgacheffe through introduction of conventional-tasting hybrid varieties into the region. Yergacheffe is a town in the Sidamo region of Ethiopia, and the coffees from this region will surprise you with their floral and tangerine notes. My assumption is that this is true because the region tapped for coffees sold under these names is larger and the production more diffused, with more opportunity for dilution of the classic profile through introduced varieties of Arabica. The flowers can be lush and jasmine-like or spicy and rose-like. Assuming this assertion is correct, it undoubtedly accounts for the uniqueness and intensity of the Yirgacheffe profile. 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