From : Bona Zuria, Sidama, Ethiopia (2100-2200 MASL)
Varietal : Mixed JARC (74158, 74165, 74112, 74110, 7440)
Process : White Honey
Notes : Golden Raspberry, Lemon Sugar, Lilac
125g whole coffee beans
Taste
This is another delicious and fun Ethiopian coffee. It is our first non-washed coffee and from the famous Sidama zone. This coffee is on the cleaner side of honey-processing and presents very much like a washed coffee. The acidity and sweetness are well balanced. The florals of this coffee are very sweet and perfume-like, ranging from white to purple. Over days of tasting we have experienced notes of golden raspberry, lemon sugar, lilac, white florals, and persimmon.
Processing
Before the carefully-selected ripe cherries head to the pulper, they are further hand sorted for color consistency, floated for density, then hand sorted again. White honey processing is the closest to washed-process; once pulped, the parchment will still be coated in a thin layer of sticky mucilage, which is then fermented carefully. The amount of fermentation in this part of the process dictates the type of honey process that ends up on the beds. White honey has the least mucilage in the end. Following the fermentation cycle, the parchment is directly moved to shaded drying beds for stable distribution of air flow and soft sunlight until they reach the targeted dryness.
The Tulu Family and Bare Site
The Bare site is owned by the Tulu family, inherited after manager Tsegab Ayele’s uncle, Beshu Tulu, passed away. It is just a 20 minutes drive from the Demeka Becha site. Tsegab’s father is Ayele Tulu, a Sidama man who is deeply integrated into the local area of Bona Zuria. The heart, perhaps the true engine of the family, is Genet Haile Endeshow, Tsegab’s mother and Ayele’s wife. She fills up their lives and the home with her warmth, and her embrace expands to include everyone who has the privilege of working with the family and their coffee-producing sites. She’ll make you a killer doro wat (chicken stew), which is served to honor guests in Ethiopia, and follow it up with traditional Ethiopian buna (coffee), served on her porch below the flowering vines that shade it even in the heat of midday. Bare is a Kebele (village) in the Bona Zuria district, where smallholder producers bring their ripe coffee cherries to be processed. Swifts coordinator, Aron Fesaha, processes coffee cherries at both Demeka Becha and Bare to produce unique special processes. Although not far from each other in Bona Zuria, Sidama, Bare and Demeka Becha site have distinct micro-climates and draw from variations of coffee cultivars, which means that they have different coffee profiles.
Sourced from Swift Coffee Sourcing
