Äthiopien Lalesa - anaerobic natural

Cup profile:
Nectarine, apricot, black tea, floral, hibiscus, plum, strawberry punch

Key facts:
Lalesa Site, Gedeb District
Variety: Heirloom
anaerobic natural, 2150–2200 m

About the coffee:
You know us—lots processed anaerobically always get extra scrutiny from us. Because funky is great, but funky alone isn’t enough to make it into our selection. We’re extra picky... because it has to suit our roasting style. And that’s clean*.

That’s why we also danced around the cupping table a little when we first tasted this coffee. It has everything we want in an Ethiopian coffee PLUS fancy flavors (strawberry punch, I’m looking at you!) that make it something really special. But not so much that it knocks your socks off. Just right. And that brings us back to one of our favorite words: well-balanced!

About the coffee: Lalesa Site is located in Gedeb District in southwestern Ethiopia. It has 3.5 hectares of growing area and 350 drying beds, where the coffee is dried, at an elevation of 2150–2200 m. Annual production is around nine tons. The coffee grows here in the shade under trees (mainly Ensete) and, after harvesting, is fermented anaerobically in barrels for nine days—which is where the funky notes in the cup come from. The coffee is then dried for 13–18 days (depending on the weather), until it reaches its final moisture content.

* What does “clean” actually mean in coffee terminology?
Clean, in the sense of a clear cup profile, means in coffee terminology that, first, no distracting factors are perceptible and, second, the individual flavors in the coffee are easy to identify and describe. This is a quality issue with the green coffee (so it has to be especially high quality), and, of course, also a matter of roasting. During profile development—and again in weekly production afterward—a delicate touch is needed to draw out the flavors in the beans. And as we know, Felix is especially good at that!