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'This coffee is fast becoming a perennial favourite'
This is the third consecutive year that we have bought coffee from this washing station and the flavour profile is reassuringly familiar.
When we drink this coffee, we get boozy funkiness yes, but it's not overwhelming like some of the wilder Ethiopian lots can be. Just like last year, we have those wonderful floral bergamot notes that remind us of Earl Grey tea and a wonderful dark brown sugar sweetness that helps deliver an indulgent, decadent finish.
This coffee is really good in all brew methods, but for us it really shines in espresso. Add milk and you're in for a real treat.
Origin: Chelbesa, Gedeb district within the Gedeo Zone, Ethiopia
Varietals: Heirloom
Processing: Natural
Roast degree: 131 (read more).
Suitable for: All Brew Methods (read more)
Q Score: 85 (what's this?)
You can get more sensory information about the coffee by looking at the diagrams in the images above. If you need to know how these work, just click here.
Taste and flavour perception are complex and difficult to articulate. We love sharing our tasting notes with you, but please don't rely too heavily on our reports. Your experience is what matters most and it may be different. We've written about that whole issue here.
IMPORTANT: Please read our short Coffee Bean Care Guide here.
Want to know more about this coffee? Read on......
The Natural Yirgacheffee Chelbesa comes from the renowned coffee-growing area of Worka Chelbesa, located in the Gedeb district within the Gedeo Zone of Ethiopia.
This region is characterized by its dense, semi-forest vegetation, including shade-grown coffee trees and false banana plants, creating ideal agroecological conditions for high-quality coffee production.
In 2019, SNAP Specialty Coffee established a wet mill in the small hamlet of Danche within Chelbesa Village, designed to exclusively process red cherries from nearby farmers. The ceramic fermentation tanks at the wet mill enhance the clarity of the coffee by retaining heat, which accelerates fermentation. The processing involves 72 hours of wet fermentation, one hour of soaking, and drying on raised beds for 12 days.
Grown at altitudes between 1,950 and 2,200 meters, the coffee is produced by 763 contributing farmers and harvested between November and January. It is processed using various methods, including fully washed, natural, anaerobic washed, and anaerobic natural, ensuring a wide range of flavour profiles.
Really enjoying this coffee, classic Ethiopian flavours (earl grey tea and jasmine to me), but smoother and more mellow than any Ethiopian coffee I’ve tried before, they can be pretty intense and perfumey. It’s sweet, and definitely has some nice funk to it. Like a perfect mid ground between those typical rich toffee nutty notes I often find in a Columbian coffee, and those bright zesty floral notes in Ethiopian and Rwandan coffees. You nailed it with this lot.
As always, great shop, great service and great people. Been buying coffee here for years as a local resident, the quality is exceptional and among the top in Sheffield if not the best. Happy to support this local business and all the baristas make a wicked flat white whenever I pop in to cutlery works.
ah, wow Baris - thank you so much for your lovely review. Honestly, feedback like this just makes our day......and a great sumary of this coffee for other people to benefit from too, thanks again!
not as fruity, funky and jammy as I'd hoped, not priced at the same level as a lot of the most fruity beans so...
Hey Mike, sorry you're not digging the beans. We hadn't thought of this one as particularly fruity ourselves, so I'm wondering whether perhaps you read the description from a different coffee? I'd agree, definitley not jammy either, much more the classic Ethiopian tea-like body profile. You might enjoy something like the Karimikui more, sound slike it might tick more of your boxes!