Ethiopia
Shantewena
250g
*Competition Series*
QUALITY SCORE: 90.50
Cup Notes
Lavender / Strawberry / Lime / Plum
Suggested for espresso and filter
when we roast
We freshly roast to order all coffees on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (excluding national holidays), and ship the same day! Cut-off time is 11:59pm (UTC+1) of the day before the roast day. *We only ship whole beans*
Details
- Quality Score
- 90.50
- Producer
- Several small farmers
- Country
- Ethiopia
- Terroir
- Sidama
- Altitude
- 2000 - 2300 mt
- Process
- Classic Natural
- Arabica cultivar
- Heirlooms
- Picked in
- Dec 2019 - Jan 2020
- Arrived in
- August 2020
- Shipped in
- Jute + GrainPro
- Roast profile by
- Rubens Gardelli
- Roasted on
- Customised solid-drum roaster
THE STORY BEHIND
Since the previous lot was extremely appreciated and you all loved it, we are now bringing you another fresh crop from Sidama region, Ethiopia.
Daye Bensa is a coffee exporting company founded by the brothers Asefa and Mulugeta Dukamo in 2006.
The company owns a farm and works with several communities of outgrowers. Daye Bensa farm is located at the heart of Shantewena Village within 10km from Daye - a town in the middle of natural forest and indigenous trees, the age of which is presumably more than 200 years. The farm is within the reachable distance for outgrowers in Bombe, Shantewena and Keramo villages. It is surrounded by rivers, one of them, separating Shantewena from Bombe, runs from the hills above Keramo.
Daye Bensa works with multiple washing stations. Their main washing station is situated at Shantewena, other important ones are Keramo and Abore (Bombe). In 2020, Daye Bensa won the 7th place in the Cup of Excellence with their Assefa Dukamo Korma Natural, grown on Asefa’s farm and processed in Shantewena station. The outgrower farmers from adjacent villages are essentially fixed suppliers for the Shantewena station, as they do not deliver cherries to other stations. The farmers cooperating with the station agree to follow good farming practices to ensure sustainability and traceability. Daye Bensa is also investing in upgraded processing equipment of the station and experimenting with honey and anaerobic fermentation.
Keramo cherries are processed on the Shantewena station. So far, the lots from Bombe, Shantewena and Keramo villages continue to stand out on the cupping table. The beans are very dense, with heavy concentrations of the smaller screen sizes, which is highly unusual and is due to the higher elevations, where the coffee is grown.
THE VARIETY
Ethiopian Heirloom, why the generic name? It's estimated that there are somewhere in-between six and ten thousand coffee varietals in Ethiopia. And due to this colossal figure, there hasn’t been the genetic testing to allow buyers to distinguish the varietal. With the cross pollination that naturally happens in the wild, the name ‘Ethiopian Heirloom’ exists as a catch all phrase to describe this happenstance. However, that really makes Ethiopian quite a mystery – and an interesting mystery with that as each village or town could potentially have a different varietal which could carry very unique properties.
Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, meaning it was only naturally found here!
THE FERMENTATION PROCESS
Dry process seems simple: pick the fruit, lay it out in the sun until it turns from red to brown to near-back, and then hull off off the thick, dried outer layer in one step to reveal the green bean. It is a method suited to arid regions, where the sun and heat can dry the seed inside the intact fruit skin.
It's often referred to as "natural coffee" because of its simplicity, and because the fruit remains intact and undisturbed, a bit like drying grapes into raisins. Since it requires minimal investment, the dry process method is a default to create cheap commodity-grade coffee in areas that have the right climate capable of drying the fruit and seed.
But it’s a fail in humid or wet regions. If the drying isn't progressing fast enough, the fruit degrades, rots or molds.
Dry-processed coffees can also be wildly inconsistent. If you want a cleanly-fruited, sweet, intense cup, dry process (DP) takes more hand labor than the wet process. Even the most careful pickers will take green unripe or semi-ripe coffee off the branch as they pick red, ripe cherry. If these are not removed in the first days of drying, the green turns to brown that is hard to distinguish from the ripe fruit.
MORE INFO
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