CATATONIC BLISS, Ethiopia

Boysenberry, Creaming Soda, Dark Chocolate

Worka Chelichele is a well-known washing station that sits at 1,900+ MASL and receives cherry from smallholders farms in the Yirgacheffe region. Farming methods are largely traditional here. Farmers intercrop coffee plants with other food crops, cherry is picked by the family and most farms are organic by default. The climate, soil and altitude is what makes coffees from this region so highly sought after. Farmers selectively handpick ripe cherry and deliver it to the station. There the cherry is inspected and graded. For this anaerobic lot, only fully ripe cherries are selected. The cherry is tightly packed in GrainPro bags, sealed shut and fermented without oxygen (Anaerobic). Microbes that fuel the fermentation quickly consume all the oxygen in the sealed bags. At that point, the environment becomes anaerobic (without oxygen). In this new environment, microbes that typically breathe oxygen have a harder time surviving and those that flourish on carbon dioxide are able to dominate fermentation. Different microbes produce different flavors, and in combination with the rich terroir of Yirgacheffe, it means a pretty astounding coffee is born. After fermentation, the cherry is laid to dry in direct sunlight on raised beds for 3 weeks. Workers frequently turn the cherry to promote an even drying.

In the natural process, whole cherry is dried intact so the bean steeps in its own fruit. Done with discipline it builds heavy sweetness, body and pronounced berry character, with no shortcuts at the drying stage.

Ethiopia is the birthplace of Arabica, and its forests hold a genetic diversity found nowhere else. Smallholder gardens at extreme altitude give the floral, citric, tea-like cups the country is known for.