Summary Farm: Halo Beriti Wash Station Variety: Ethiopian Heirloom Region: Yirgacheffe Altitude: 2,100 - 2,300 Meters Process: Natural & Special Preparation Roast Level: Medium/Dark Brewing Recommendations: This coffee is great when brewed in a Chemex, French Press and everyday drip machine. Flavor Profile This coffee is fairly complex with a vast flavor profile. This coffee is well balanced and fun to drink. It's very juicy and almost quenching. Upon first taste, you will get notes of raspberry jam and peach preserves. You will notice the abundance of cocoa and dark chocolate. There are lingering notes of cane sugar but is clean and crisp on the finish. Details Halo Beriti Washing Station was established in 2014 and serves 750 smallholder producers, who deliver their coffee in cherry form. This particular lot is part of a "special preparation" in which hand-sorting was done repeatedly throughout the receiving and drying process, ensuring that only perfect coffees made it into the bags. This is also done after the coffee is roasted in order to ensure the coffee you get is perfect. Coffees in Ethiopia are typically grown on very small plots of land (between 2 and 4 acres) by farmers who also grow other crops. The majority of smallholders will deliver their coffee in cherry to a nearby washing station or central processing unit, where their coffee will be sorted, weighed, and paid for or given a receipt. Coffee is then processed, usually washed or natural, by the washing station and dried on raised beds. The washing stations serve as many as several hundred to sometimes a thousand or more producers, who deliver cherry throughout the harvest season: The blending of these cherries into day lots makes it virtually impossible under normal circumstances to know precisely whose coffee winds up in which bags on what day, making traceability to the producer difficult. Typically, farmers in this region don't have access to and therefore do not utilize fertilizers or pesticides in the production of coffee. Process: Natural Special Prep With the special prep (what the producers generally call “Premium” in Ethiopia) the cherries are collected from a limited number of small-holder farmers. 90% of the cherries are perfectly picked, the right red color. 5% semi red and 5% overripe. All of it is processed and stored separately from the other lots. They generally produce a very small number of bags this way every year. In most instances, cherries used to produce these lots are collected from a day lot (picked in one day). Natural coffees in Ethiopia are first sorted for ripeness and quality before being rinsed clean Then they are spread on raised drying beds or tables, where they will be rotated constantly throughout the course of drying. Drying can take an average of 8–25 days, depending on the weather. Yirgacheffe Region Yirgacheffe has become famous for coffees that tastes like blueberries. This region is plentiful. The thick vegetation is a product of the warm tropical climate with moderate wet and dry seasons. Most coffee is shade-grown by small producers using organic practices. Coffees are cultivated from 1,600 to 2,400 masl in these highlands. The multitude of micro-regions creates complex profiles depending on the washing station a particular coffee is from. Ethiopia Among coffee-producing countries, Ethiopia holds near-legendary status not only because it’s the “birthplace” of Arabica coffee, but also because it is simply unlike every other place in the coffee world. Unlike the vast majority of coffee-growing countries, the plant was not introduced as a cash crop through colonization. Instead, growing, processing, and drinking coffee is part of the everyday way of life, and has been for centuries since the trees were discovered growing wild in forests and eventually cultivated for household use and commercial sale. The majority of Ethiopia’s farmers are smallholders and sustenance farmers, with less than 2 acres of land apiece across a