Somewhere between a hillside in southern Ethiopia and a roastery in the Ribble Valley, a coffee cherry becomes the drink you have with breakfast. Most of that journey never gets told. We wanted to tell this one properly.
Where it begins
Our new single-origin is grown in Shantawene, in the Sidama region of Ethiopia, at somewhere between 2,260 and 2,360 metres above sea level. It's farmed by around 940 smallholders, most working less than five hectares each, growing coffee alongside sugarcane, fruit and inset, a local staple plant. For most of these families, coffee income alone isn't enough to live on, and few can afford chemical fertiliser or pesticides even if they wanted to, so the coffee ends up organic almost by circumstance rather than by certification.
Their cherries are gathered and processed at the Buncho washing station, built by Asefa Dukamo, who started out as a teenager buying cherries from neighbouring farms because there weren't enough washing stations nearby for producers to process their coffee without travelling long distances. He built his first station in Girja in 1997. Today, the operation he founded, Daye Bensa, runs 20 washing stations and five mills across the region, and reinvests in the community through a programme building roads and installing electricity for the farmers it works with.
Only the ripest cherries are handpicked, sorted by density in water, then de-pulped, fermented for 24 hours, washed by hand, and dried on raised beds for 12 to 15 days, turned every half hour so it dries evenly. From there it's a trip by horseback or motorbike to the mill before it's ready to leave Ethiopia at all.
Why this particular coffee
We didn't just buy "an Ethiopian." We cupped several samples before settling on this one, because it struck a balance we don't find often: plenty of body without tipping into heaviness, very clean, more complex than most Ethiopians we've tried. Ethiopia is arguably where coffee comes from in the first place, and this lot had exactly the kind of big, fruit-forward character the country's known for.
Where it ends up
From Shantawene, this coffee travels a very long way to reach a small roastery in the Ribble Valley, a part of Lancashire that's every bit as shaped by its own farming community as Shantawene is by its coffee growers. It's a strange thing to sit with, roasting a coffee grown by smallholders on the other side of the world in a building surrounded by Lancashire farmland, but it's exactly why we do this. Good coffee is a farming story wherever it comes from, and we think that's worth taking seriously in both directions.
Getting the roast right took several attempts. We were aiming for a medium roast that would build real body and sweetness for a coffee that's predominantly going to be drunk as espresso. Too dark, and the sweetness disappears. Too light, and you lose the body. The profile we landed on holds the balance between the two.
One more thing worth knowing
You'll often see this region written as "Sidamo." That's the old spelling. Since a 2020 referendum made Sidama an official regional state, Sidama is the correct name, and it's the one we use.
What it tastes like
Expect cherry, chocolate and vanilla, with real body behind it. It works best as an espresso or in a flat white, though it holds up just as well in a moka pot or French press.
There's a lot that happens between a hillside in Shantawene and a cup in the Ribble Valley, and almost none of it usually gets mentioned. We think it's worth knowing exactly whose coffee you're drinking, and how far it's come to reach you.