This is my current favourite. This is a full-bodied, chocolatey coffee enjoyed best at a city roast.

History

Ethiopia, the originator of the Coffea arabica, has four regions from where their coffee is “marketed”: Harar, Sidamo, Yirgacheffe and Limu. The Sidamo province has been divided since 1995 to the Southern Peoples Region, Oromia region, and the Somali Region. Of course, customers are none-the-wiser as the ‘Sidamo’ marketing has been unchanged.

At my local coffeeshop, these beans are $5-10 USD per pound at 50 lb to 0.5 lb pricing, respectively. After roasting, this translates to about 15 cups of coffee per pound, or $0.35-0.70 per cup.

These Grade 2 beans have more imperfections than Grade 1 beans which may be due to a blend of imperfect beans across all the estates in the region. If you look closely at the photos below you can maybe tell, and like me, not care:

Roasting

These beans should be roasted to a City Roast. Dark roasting increased bitterness while losing the beans’ other flavours.

Will need a different technique or a smaller pan for a more even roast.

Tasting

The Hario V60 and a paper filter are all you need for this coffee. It keeps the full body and baker’s chocolate flavour.

The Hario Drip Pot and cotton filter are not recommended here as the coffee is not complex enough to be appreciated with the body stripped.

If you are interested in buying such a device, note that you have the added maintenance of managing bacteria growing on your re-usable filter (see directions below) and what a “cup” translates to in Japanese.