Ethiopia - Rumudamo Natural [25/26]

Brew Guide:

Best Brewed with: Filter/Turbo Espresso

Lightest Roaster Influence: While we've been roasting Rumudamo nat for a few years now, this year's lot is a little higher moisture and a little funkier in the cup than previous years. We've had to balance this - a new for higher heat in the middle of the roast with the desire to minimise the heavier process notes with a softer end, without a soggy profile or scorching the outside. It's a thin window to walk to hit our usual style, but we've been really enjoying the results

Best Rested: 4+ weeks

Filter: 62g/L, 94°C when fresh; 92°C when rested

Espresso: 18g/50g/20-24s

We're tasting: Aromatics of pomelo, wild rose and dried strawberries. In the cup it's super sweet with dense berry notes - we find raspberry jam, lemon zest, rose and a hint of process-forward boozy notes, but ultra-sweet - like strawberry and lime cider. As it cools we find more tropicals - like lychee, with a hint of oolong alongside geranium florals.

Traceability

The Story

When we travelled to Ethiopia in February, we made sure to cup with all our major supply chain partners in country. Cupping with Daye Bensa entailed travelling about 45 minutes out of Addis to their state of the art dry-mill, cafe and quality offices, which was truly a site to behold. Cupping through a mega table of coffees, one of our favourites of the day blind was a return of an absolute stalwart of the range - this year's latest Rumudamo natural

Rumudamo, Daye Bensa & Coffee Legends:

We’ve made a commitment to try and work with producer owned value chains wherever possible. This means that those that grow the coffee, also manage the exporting and importing process ensuring that the maximum value for our purchase is returned upstream. This means both working with smaller independent outfits, as well as larger operations.

Daye Bensa was founded by two brothers - Asefa and Mulugeta in 1996, setting up a farm and washing station in the Bensa region of Sidama. Initially only selling internally (as Ethiopia has a strong internal market for coffee - around 50% of what is grown in Ethiopia never leaves its borders), in 2006 they started exporting coffee internationally. Since then, Daye Bensa has grown to be one of the top 5 largest international exporters by volume (and most assuredly higher by quality!) in Ethiopia, but still to this day family owned and based in-country.

Atrie from Coffee Legends is Asefa’s brother in law - having worked as a manager for Daye Bensa, with a stint in finance in the UK, he took the leap to set up a UK import office for Daye Bensa. Atrie’s mission is to specifically highlight and promote the Arbegona region of Sidama - a relatively youthful area for coffee production.

Arbegona represents an interesting example of the future of coffee - but perhaps not as we would like to see. It is no secret that Arabica coffee trees are fussy plants - even in their native Ethiopia, they have a defined climactic range in which they flourish. They thrive best with daytime temperatures no higher than 25-30c, with a cooler nighttime temperature. As global and local temperatures crank ever upwards, coffee production in lower altitudes is in crisis - the heat stress diminishing yields, increasing susceptibility to disease and insect damage, and when we consider cup attributes, hotter temps lead to rapid cherry maturation and poor quality. Slowly but surely lower altitude regions no longer become suitable for growing coffee as the global temps rise.

Arbegona is an example of the counter-point of this - as temperatures rise and lower altitude areas become unsuitable, regions that were previously too high and too cold for production become viable. Arbegona is home to higher elevations than the surrounding classic woredas of Sidama, elevations that common wisdom over 30 years ago would have said no coffee would grow. But as temperatures rise, farmers have had success growing extremely high altitude coffee - some of the highest grown in the world.

Unlike other regions with longer histories, the majority of coffee production in Arbegona is recent plantings, mostly Jimma Agricultural Centre improved cultivars (as opposed to a mixture of JARC and local selected landraces). This means we can be very confident in discussing which varieties have built the lot, and we see a more defined flavour profile from the 3 JARC varieties typically planted in the region. Secondly, the extremely high altitude is still not completely conquered by the rising climates - cooler nights ensure that cherry maturation is a slow process, and often the cherries themselves are incredibly small. Dense, tiny beans but packed full of intensity and flavour from the conditions. It’s no wonder when you combine this with quality focused protocols and processing that Arbegona is quickly picking up a reputation for top, top quality production, a reputation to rival the most storied kebeles.

But it’s tinged with mourning - while we gain access to new regions inside the motherland of coffee, with incredible and distinct profiles, the lingering thought always returns - what happens when “low altitude conditions” cover the majority of the coffee lands across the globe, and there are no more mountains to climb?