Ethiopia Shale - kawa specialty

Floral lightness straight from Yirgacheffe

In the area around Worka, high in the mountains of Yirgacheffe, coffee is part of everyday life. Hundreds of local families grow it on small farms, often less than a hectare in size. The cherries picked by around 1,500 farmers are brought to the Shale washing station, where they come together to create the coffee we chose as our November Coffee of the Month. Ethiopia Shale has everything we love about coffees from Yirgacheffe—it’s light, clean, floral, and wonderfully aromatic. The cup reveals the delicacy of white tea and jasmine, a fresh citrus note of bergamot, and the pleasant sweetness of raisins.

This coffee is for those who seek subtlety and many delicate nuances in their pour-over rather than a heavy, intense flavor. Behind its delicate profile lies a much bigger story—high-altitude farms, the work of hundreds of small farms, and a place where their harvests come together in a single lot.