Daye Bensa

A stellar washed Ethiopian from the Sidama region! Limited stock so grab a bag while you can!
 
Growers: 650 producers situated around the Bensa washing station
Origin: Sidama region, Ethiopia
Variety: heirloom
Process: washed
Notes: blueberry, black tea, orange candy, florals
Brewing: This really is an allrounder! It works well on espresso, with milk, and as filter and drip coffee. At the cafe we use it primarily on espresso and it's a real staff favourite!
Rest from roast date: 2-3 weeks ideally. 10 days minimum.
 
With its clear blueberry notes and amazing sweetness this coffee is a real winner! Brewed as espresso it has great body despite being a fairly light roast. It can also definitely stand up to milk if you add milk to your coffee. 
 
Daye Bensa is one of the entrepreneurial groups pushing Sidama’s coffee to new levels. Originally founded in 1996 by two brothers from the Bensa district, the organization now operates 2 of its own large estates and manages over 15 processing stations in eastern Sidama.  
 
This lot is centrally processed coffee from smallholders in the Boreta village, part of the Arbegona district, north of Bensa. Growers here are at an average of 2,200 meters in elevation, farming entirely on small, diversified plots typically devoted to coffee, sugar cane, spices, subsistence vegetables, and enset—a fruit-less relative of the banana tree whose pulp is scraped and packed into cakes, fermented underground, and then sliced and toasted as kocho, a staple starch.  
 
Processing begins with fresh picked cherry that is floated for density and hand-sorted to remove any imperfections. Cherry is then depulped ,and the parchment is fermented slowly—36 to 48 hours—due to the low ambient temperatures in the region and the replenishment of cold groundwater throughout the process. Drying takes 12-15 days and wet parchment is often covered during the searingly-hot afternoon hours to prevent it from cracking.  
 
Once complete, dried parchment is conditioned in local warehouses before being transported to Daye Bensa’s Addis Ababa dry milling facility, where it is cleaned, sorted, and prepped for export.