Description
Worka station is located in the coveted Gedeb district, the southernmost district of Ethiopia’s famous Gedeo zone. Nearly all of Gedeb is known for its gifted processing climate and experienced growers. Washed and natural coffees alike from this area tend to be dense and fruit-forward, ranging from sparkling clean acidic fruits to jammy or herbal concentrated sweetness.
This G2 washed-process lot comes from Worka Washing Station, which collects cherry from 37 kebeles in the surrounding area. Farmers in this area grow a mix of different cultivars and local heirloom varieties.
This is a beautiful lot of grade 2 coffee. Most are darker toned with tea/spice tastes and best at fuller roasts, but not this one. If it weren’t for the slightly smaller bean size, one would think this to be a grade 1 top lot: Floral, chocolaty, sweet and delicate with a bit of unique jasmine like aromatics, great in the light-medium roast levels.
Tasting Notes: Very clean cup following the traditional Washed Ethiopian profile. Jasmine/floral like aromatics add a wonderful layer of complexity. Lighter roasts have a sweet lemony citric edge balancing with a smooth and delicate chocolate undertone. Medium body and brightness levels. Definitely has some floral characteristics that pop right out as well as some hints of spice that get accentuated into the fuller roasts. Easy to see those unique tastes coming from the heirloom strains. Medium roasts gentle out the cup, smooth most would say. Although it still retains hints of floral, the cup becomes more about the chocolate notes with some exotic aromatics and spice that linger in the aftertaste. Darker roasts will be very low acidity and strong, not as smooth or exotic, but has a strong bakers chocolate note many will enjoy. Just touching 2nd crack is a sweet spot for the darker roasts fans to get that big chocolaty bittersweet cup without being too smoky.
Roasting Notes:
Being a fresh washed processed, these beans are pretty easy to get a good cup out of. Lighter roasting will be a bit acidic but showcase the unique characteristics, medium to dark roasts are bit better for daily drinking, richer and smoother. Low to medium chaff on the beans and even roasting. If you like those more fruity floral tones, error a bit lighter, more of a robust exotic chocolaty fan, error a little darker.
Gedeb and Its Coffee:
Gedeo zone is a narrow section of Ethiopia’s southern highland plateau dense with savvy farmers, a famous terroir, and high competition for cherry. Gedeo as a whole is frequently referred to as “Yirgacheffe”, after the zone’s most famous central district. Gedeb, however, is a terroir, history, and community all its own that merits unique designation in our eyes. Coffees from this district, much closer to Guji zone than the rest of Gedeo, are often the most explosive cup profiles we see from anywhere in Ethiopia. Naturals tend to have perfume-like volatiles, and fully washed lots are often sparklingly clean and fruit candy-like in structure. The Gedeb district is a remote but impressively industrious area for coffee production. Half of its territory is planted with coffee. The city of Gedeb itself is a bustling outpost that links commerce between the Guji and Gedeo Zones, with an expansive network of processing stations who buy cherry from across zone borders. The communities surrounding Gedeb reach some of the highest growing elevations for coffee in the world and are a truly enchanting part of the landscape.
Processing Details:
This particular processing station has hundreds of individual smallholders contributing cherries, each averaging about 3 hectares of coffee cultivation. Most of them also produce enset—a fruit-less relative of the banana tree whose pulp is scraped and packed into cakes, fermented underground, and then toasted as kocho, a staple starch in the area. The washed processed coffees are sorted by hand on arrival, then floated to remove less dense and damaged cherries. Next the sorted cherries are depulped, fermented and washed, and then taken to raised beds to fully dry, a process that takes about 18 days. Finished dried parchment is stored locally to rest and allow internal moisture to equilibrate, and then trucked to Addis Ababa to be dehulled and for additional sorting and preparation for export.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.