Éthiopie naturel – Taramesa

//Don’t hold the leopard’s tail—or if you do, don’t let go// Sweet breezes, summer rain, and golden rays. I climb up to my treehouse—can you see the leopard showing off?

Cooperative: Taramesa
Region: Sidama
Farm altitude: 1,800 to 1,900 m
Coffee varieties: indigenous varieties – this is a “Garden Coffee”: farmers have several coffee trees in their gardens, but it’s more difficult to determine the exact variety of each plant.
Processing: natural
Harvest: hand-picked, November to December
Cooperative founded: 2001
Number of members: 80,000 farmers across the country
Website: http://www.sidamacoffee.com/Certification: organic farming

Direct-trade coffee from the producer @Roasters United

Cup profile: a delicate coffee with notes of wild strawberry, mango, and milk chocolate. Ideal for pour-over methods, it is lightly roasted to preserve its aromas while offering a touch of acidity.

The Taramesa cooperative is located in the Sidama region, 300 km south of the country’s capital, Addis Ababa. Like our other coffee from Ethiopia, the cooperative is a member of the SCFCU (Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union), a “Union” of 42 cooperatives that provides its members with shared coffee processing facilities (washing stations, depulpers, and hullers) and quality-control tools. It also supports them in their commercial relationships with international coffee buyers.

This coffee’s aromas are distinctive because of its natural fermentation process. This means the coffee cherries are spread out on drying beds after harvest, and the beans ferment inside the cherries for more than three weeks. After drying, the beans are hulled and sent to Addis Ababa before being transported to Europe.