Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Gelena Abaya Natural

Description from Blue Bottle Coffee

Unlike most Yirgacheffes, the Gelena Abaya is dry-processed. This yields a sparkling, fragrant and exceptionally fruit-forward cup.

Yirgacheffe, a subregion within Sidamo, Ethiopia, is known (and revered) for its clean, delicate, lemon-and-jasmine-redolent washed coffees. Rarer are dry-processed Yirgacheffes, which carry all the citrus of their washed cousins, but bring a heavier body, more sweetness and a bubble-gum pack of vibrant fruit flavors. Grown near the border with Kenya in the Bule Hora region, in the south of Sidamo, the Gelena Abaya is not in the strictest sense a Yirgacheffe. But you wouldn’t know it as the cup explodes with strawberry jam, melon, peppery spices, vanilla, jasmine, bergamot and apples. The juxtaposition of complexity, approachability and sensory reward makes you feel like you’ve stepped up to a 1,000-piece puzzle, assembled it in three minutes, and been handed a pork roast as a reward. A further plus for this coffee is its versatility – it will shine in any preparation method you choose, from siphon to espresso to Chemex to Kyoto-style iced. We hear it even works well as a rub on pork roasts.