Tastes like

Peach tea, animal crackers, caramel, and pear. SINGLE FARM Yirgacheffe.

Delicate and sweet, with peach tea brightness up front, warm animal cracker and caramel character through the middle, and a clean pear finish that lingers. Yirgacheffe at elevation, traceable all the way to the person who grew it.

The coffee

This coffee is traceable to a single farmer, which is rarer in Ethiopia than you might expect. For most of its history, Ethiopian coffee has been sold under the name of a washing station or cooperative, with individual producers invisible in the chain. The Single Farmer Project, which began in 2012, changed that. Working with an established cooperative during a turbulent period in Ethiopia's export history, Café Imports was able to bring to market some of the first truly farm-traceable lots from the country. The early days of the project involved things like arriving in Yirgacheffe with a backpack full of Ethiopian Birr to pay premiums directly into the hands of the farmers involved. It was the start of a movement toward traceability in Ethiopia that is still growing today. This lot is part of that ongoing work.

Origin

Yirgacheffe is one of the most celebrated coffee regions in the world, and the elevation here is part of why. Sitting in the highlands of southern Ethiopia, the region's warm tropical climate, moderate rainfall, and dense shade canopy create conditions that slow cherry development and build complexity in the cup. Most coffee here is grown by smallholder farmers using traditional, low-intervention practices. The altitude range across Yirgacheffe runs from 1600 to 2400 MASL, and Gobena Bendo's farm sits near the very top of that range, at 2200 to 2300 metres. That elevation shows in the cup.

The farm

Mr. Gobena Bendo is 65 years old and has spent his life farming the land his father left him. The farm covers 10 hectares in Yirgacheffe, part of which is planted to coffee and part to cereals that help feed his family through the year. He produces seven to eight quintals of coffee per hectare and employs two part-time workers alongside his adult children, who live nearby and help with the farmwork. The income from this farm covers his health, transportation, and daily needs, and he hopes to pass the land on to the next generation. It is a small operation run with care, and the coffee reflects that.

Process

Washed, at some of the highest elevations Yirgacheffe has to offer. Coffee is picked ripe and depulped the same day, then fermented and washed clean of its mucilage before being moved to raised beds to dry. The combination of meticulous processing and the cool, slow-drying conditions at 2200 to 2300 MASL produces a cup that is clean and defined, with the delicate peach tea and pear character intact all the way through.

Brew it your way

At its best on filter, where the delicate notes have room to open up. On filter at 1:16, the peach tea and pear come through with clarity and the caramel gives the cup a gentle sweetness that holds everything together. Pull it as espresso at a 1:2 ratio in 28 to 32 seconds and the animal cracker and caramel notes deepen into something warm and satisfying.