Tima, Ethiopia

TASTING NOTES

candied orange, floral, vanilla, stone fruit

COFFEE BACKGROUND

Sookoo Coffee operates several stations high in the mountains outside Shakiso, in the Guji zone of southern Ethiopia. Strip mining of gold and minerals have left the area deforested and depleted. In the local language, “Sookoo” means “gold” — and founder Ture Waji believes coffee can be “the new gold,” revitalizing the land rather than exploiting it. Ture has become a leader of the new generation of coffee growing in eastern Guji.

Sookoo processed this coffee at their Weessi washing station. They pulped the ripe cherries, fermented them in water for 12 hours, then washed away any remaining mucilage. Then they spread the seeds in thin layers on raised drying beds. To ensure even drying, station workers carefully turned the coffee multiple times each day. Sookoo maintains an obsessive focus on quality in their processing; as a result, the coffees they produce are remarkably clean and bright, bursting with delightfully floral, fruit-forward, and complex character.