The Coffee
- varietal heirloom arabica
- altitude 1,800 meters
- processing sun-dried natural
- cooperative Hache Cooperative, SFCU
- region Bensa, Sidama Province
In recent decades, traditional methods of coffee processing fell out of favor with buyers looking for a standardized, more predictable coffee flavor. We’ve worked with the farmers and their cooperative to return to their traditional “natural” method where the tart skin and sweet flesh of the fruit is sun-dried like a raisin onto the coffee bean. The result is a coffee with syrupy sweetness, deep wine-like body, and an intensely jammy berry flavor.
The farmers carefully dry their ripe coffee cherries on elevated tables, which ensure good airflow and even drying. During the ten to fifteen days required to dry the sweet fruit, the coffee is turned by hand, covered from rains and the night’s moisture, and shaded from the intense equatorial midday sun. Once the fruit has dried, the skin is removed using a mechanical miller, and then the coffee is sorted, packed, and trucked to the Cooperative’s central office in Addis Ababa to be cleared for export.