Ethiopia - Kebena Natural Decaf

Brew Guide:

Best Brewed with: Espresso, Moka Pot, French Press

Medium-Heavy Roaster Influence:
Roasted for solubility & balanced acidity (E.A. decaf can be intensely tropical!) and texture.

Best rested: 1-2 weeks

For Filter: We recommend a ratio of 65g/L and 90°C water

For Espresso: 18g in, 40g out, 28-32s for a classic style of espresso.

We're tasting:
Syrupy and thick, we're finding chocolate orange as the dominant character, alongside malted milk biscuits, light fudge, brazil nuts and a hint of baking spice; with a balanced acidity
In milk - bourbon biscuits, super sweet.

Please note - due to the nature of the physiochemical changes undergone during the decaffeination, this coffee will visually appear to be a darker roast than its actual “perceived” roast degree

Traceability:

The Story:

We've been patiently waiting to drop this one - a short run, compared to our Colombian allocations. We had the caffeinated / fully washed lot of this coffee in Facility towards the end of last year, and this arrived later in the season after taking the detour to be decaffeinated. 

Haider Aba Mecha has been active in Ethiopian coffee for over thirty years. After a period working in Saudi Arabia, he returned to the region and began sourcing and supplying coffee on a small scale before establishing his first formal export operation in 2011. The Kebena Estate in Limu Kossa Woreda now represents the centre of a considerably larger operation: the original farm covers over 500 hectares across the Galle Kamese Kebele, planted predominantly with JARC accessions 74112 and 74110, with trees ranging from four to fourteen years in age across an elevation band of 1865 to 2090 MASL. An on-staff agronomist manages farm health and productivity year-round, and the farm employs upwards of 4000 seasonal workers during harvest.

Beyond Kebena, Haider has continued to expand. A second farm of around 300 hectares in the Dangaja Kebele of Limu Kossa produced its first harvest in 2025, carrying both Organic and Rainforest Alliance certification, and a third site of around 120 hectares in the nearby Gera region is currently under development. His network of collection infrastructure in the Kebena area, comprising eight washing stations, is also in the process of entering Rainforest Alliance certification. The overarching operation holds Organic, RFA, and C.A.F.E. Practices standards across its certified sites, alongside internally implemented policies on labour age minimums, worker welfare, and human rights. Investment in local infrastructure, including road-building and school construction, as well as annual distributions of school supplies to the surrounding community, is a consistent feature of how the operation is run.

The lots purchased by Osito from the 2024/25 harvest originate from the original Limu Kossa farm, with dry milling completed at a certified facility in Walmera Kolobo Woreda before export. The coffee is then shipped to Coffein Compagnie in Bremen, Germany for decaffeination using naturally derived ethyl acetate - a compound naturally found in many fruits and as a by-product of fermentation, and most typically synthesised by esterising Ethanol (a byproduct of sugarcane fermentation in Colombia, and likely sugar-beet in germany) and acetic acid (vinegar).
The EA process steams coffee to open cellular pores in the green coffee before extraction over 8 hours using the ethyl acetate to selectively remove caffeine, preserving over 95% of original volatile compounds whilst achieving 97-98% caffeine removal.