Light Roast - Ethiopia Single Farmer — Mr. Berhanu Kurse, Banko Gotiti

Mr. Berhanu Kurse lives in the village of Gotiti, in Ethiopia's Gedeo district — high altitude country built for coffee. He owns 12 hectares planted mostly to coffee trees, worked alongside his children on their own smaller plots, land passed down from his parents. Coffee is the family's main income: school, healthcare, the cost of getting from one place to another. It all runs through the cherry he picks by hand each October through January.

This natural-processed Yirgacheffe from Banko Gotiti comes in at 2200–2300 meters, grown on heirloom Ethiopian varieties and dried slow to let the fruit soak into the bean. What lands in the cup: fresh jasmine, brown sugar, cooked blueberry and strawberry, carried by sugary sweetness and a winey acidity that lingers. Bright, floral, and unmistakably Yirgacheffe.