Ethiopia Sidama Bonko
Cupping Notes:
The dry fragrance is mouth-watering in its sweetness, citrusy, with a light brown sugar scent. Full City Roast develops a very sweet milk chocolate quality, laced with orange notes. Adding hot water, the wet aromatic is piquant and delicately spiced with a fennel cookie sweetness and zesty, lemony-bright fruit. The cup taste has distinct brightness as well. There is that sugary, confectionary sweetness, accented with citrus and a touch of spice. The body is clear and light, which suits the high tonal range of the cup well.
We recommend light roasts to compliment the bright cup, and not to overshadow the flavors with a veil of darker roast taste. This is good up to Full City Roasts as well. The body is a little heavier at Full City, and the chocolate roast taste is suave, layered, backed with dark fruit tones. And if you like fairly bright espresso, and lighter body is okay with you, we have been pulling AMAZING single origin shots with this Bonko roasted to Full City.
More Details
Coffee Story / Farm Description:
This is a wet-processed coffee from the Bonko area, and the Bonko wet mill. Bonko in the Sidama region, Dara Woreda (district). Bonko is a private washing station with about 350 farmers from the area selling their coffee cherry to the mill. Bonko farmers average less than 1/2 hectare each (1 acre) so you usually talk about farms by number of trees, rather than land area. They use a traditional disc pulper to remove the coffee cherry fruit skins, then use a very long 72 hour under-water, traditional fermentation to break down the mucilage layer of the fruit. The coffee is vigorously agitated in the fermentation tank with wooden paddles to work the mucilage off, then washed to a soaking tank for a clean water overnight bath. Finally it is taken to the raised beds for drying. It’s the classic coffee processing method in Sidama and Yirga Cheffe zones, and one that develops very sweet and clean coffees.
Roast Recommendations:
City to City+ is ideal for a bright cup.
Full City will bring some sweet chocolate flavors.
Processing:
Wet Process
Varietal:
Heirloom Varietals
Ethiopia Wollega Leka Wato (WP)
Cupping Notes
The sweet scent from the Wollega is really remarkable. In the dry grounds there is abundant honey, and lemon wafer cookie. There are spice accents in the light roast, a bit of citrus rind, and just a hint menthol-eucalyptus as well. The wet aroma has cane sugar in the lighter roast levels, becoming increasingly caramelly approaching Full City roast. The cup is syrupy in texture, with sweet lemon and pear juice at City roast level. There is an amazing co-presence of sweetness, fruit notes, as well as ripe, bright-toned citrus to the cup. Lemon drop candy, that’s a good description.
It quickly changes to a dark brown sugar sweetness and more caramelized notes at City+ and Full City roast levels. I would recommend City – City+, since I find the more tarry, dark, pungent finish at FC+ a little distracting. But in fact it works so well at the lighter roasts, why go darker?
More Details
Coffee Story / Farm Description:
Some single origin coffee’s have funny sounding names. This is one of them. But what’s in a name? This coffee would typically be sold as “Lekempti”, a trade name in coffee to designate Western Ethiopian coffees traded through the city of Nekempte, while the coffee actually originates further west in East Woolen (also called Misraq Wellega which is the Gimbi woreda state). But don’t confuse that with the trade name Ghimbi, which is only for dry-process coffees from the same area.
In all that name changing, coffees were also made generic, sold and re-sold by traders, and eventually ended up with the Addis exporters under some name or other. Coffees from this area were considered Yirga Cheffe wanna-bes, and were not given much heed. But as some avenues for more direct purchasing have grown, new coffee sources are emerging. This is the first time we have offered a wet-process coffee from this area once branded Lekempti, except this was a lot that bypassed the trading system.
Leka Wato is the name of the farm in Wato town, Leka Delecha district of East Wellega area, west of Gimbi town. The farm is at about 1750 meters, and occupies about 100 hectares. Now that was a mouthful…but now you know.
Roast Recommendations:
The best roasts are from City to City+
Processing:
Wet Process
Varietal:
Heirloom Varietals
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