A subtle smokiness created from South American beans added to a perfectly full city roast african blend.  Our idea in creating this blend was to fulfill the needs of the dark coffee drinker while preserving the integrity of the coffees natural flavors with the full city roasted african beans.  Its a definite head turner as far as blends go.

 

Roast level = medium medium dark

 

 

 

All of this coffee is 100% shade grown, as the farm area is covered by a dense forest and the soil is predominantly loamy. The Nefas farm is located in the Sidama region, about 514 km from Ethiopia’s capital city Addis Ababa. The farm started producing coffee in early 2000 and consists of 200 hectares planted with coffee trees.

 

At the washing station, the washed coffees are pulped with an Agared machine, a pulper with no mucilage remover. The coffee beans are fermented for about 35-48 hours in fermentation tanks, depending on the climate at that moment. There are 3 lagoons for waste water. Subsequently, coffee is dried between 9 and 15 days on elevated beds. In order to produce natural coffees, the ripe, red cherries are put on drying beds directly after picking. These coffees are turned on the beds more regularly than wet processed coffees as natural coffees are prone to mold. Luckily, the location is very open and breezy, which helps with homogenous drying of the cherries. The smell of the cherries is very fruity and reminiscent of raisins.

 

This year, because the heavy rains, the screen size of the coffees will be larger. The farm employs between 150-200 seasonal workers and about 50 permanent workers. Accommodation, free food and medical care are all provided to the workers. 

 

The farm won 1st place in the 2011 African Fine Coffee awards.

 

Roast level = medium