Ethiopia
Reko Koba Honey lot - Ethiopia
250g
Cup Notes
Lavender / Jasmine / Lime / Honeysuckle / Mango / Peach suggested for espresso and filter
QUALITY SCORE: 91.50
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
- Producer
- Several small farmers
- Country
- Ethiopia
- Terroir
- Kochere
- Altitude
- 1850-2100 mt
- Process
- Honey
- Arabica cultivar
- Ethiopian heirlooms
- Picked in
- January 2017
- Arrived in
- August 2017
- Shipped in
- Jute + GrainPro
- Roast profile by
- Rubens Gardelli
- Roasted on
- Customised solid-drum roaster
THE STORY BEHIND
If there was such a thing as “limited edition” in coffee, this honey lot would qualify.
Reko Koba is Gedeo for Reko Mountain; Reko literally translates to challenging/difficult, referring to the arduous climb up the mountain. Reko Koba washing station is situated on the mountain from which it gets its name.
Eyasu Bekele is operations manager at Reko Mountain Mill with a 20 years experience in coffee processing. His assistant manager is Kiros Abraham, with mechanic Samuel providing able oversight of the pulper.
A pre-processing wash by a trained team removes less dense beans, allowing the most flavourful ones to remain. The “floaters” are sold locally, bringing a respectable price, and this extra step yields a higher grade of specialty coffee, bringing better prices than if floaters were included.
97 full-time employees work at the mill, where the yellow plastic used to wrap drying coffee contrasts with bright green hills and a sky of cerulean blue. This year, Reko’s specialty coffee earned a Q1 grading from the Ethiopian government, a stellar honour!
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
During the honey process the coffee cherry skin is removed right after picking from the coffee tree, but some amount of the fleshy inside, the “mucilage”, remains while the beans are dried over raised beds. The white and yellow honeys have less mucilage left after being mechanically washed. Gold, red, and black honey coffees, on the other hand, have much more mucilage remaining and usually are not washed at all.
Red and black honey coffees usually take longer to dry because they are dried under shade.
This coffee is a red honey, and it is dried with an intentional slowness in mind. In fact, the first day on the raised beds it is not moved at all. It rests with all its mucilage intact simply concentrating in flavour as it sits. From then on after it turned over or raked once a day, but that is it. All in all, this coffee could take up to three weeks to dry, like that of a natural.
