
Danche
This honey lot was processed at SNAP Coffee’s washing station in the village of Danche, located in the Chelbesa area of Yirgacheffe. During our trip to Ethiopia in February, we cupped several tables of excellent coffees from this year’s harvest at SNAP’s headquarters in Addis Ababa. Coffee for this lot was delivered by smallholders surrounding the village, before undergoing honey processing with SNAP’s meticulous team.
Honey processing is still rather seldom seen in Ethiopia, but the dry and hot conditions during harvest allow for careful and consistent control of drying, covering the drying beds with tarps during the most intense hours of sun to protect from damage and slow the drying.
Coffee is turned often, and hand sorted at several stages during processing to ensure cleanliness. This ensures a balance between very clean Ethiopian character, and a ripe fruit expression in the cup.
In the case of Danche, this creates a ripe stone fruit character, reminiscent of peach and apricot, underpinning the aromatic top notes of jasmine and white tea.
Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, coffee still grows semi-wild, and in some cases completely wild. Apart from some regions of neighbouring South Sudan, Ethiopia is the only country in which coffee is found growing in this way, due to its status as the genetic birthplace of arabica coffee. This means in many regions, small producers still harvest cherries from wild coffee trees growing in high altitude humid forests, especially around Ethiopia’s famous Great Rift Valley.
Read more about Ethiopian coffee, by following the link to the Natural coffee from Danche that we have also purchased this season.