Organic Ethiopian arabica, whole bean, from TOTO Organics.
Ethiopia is not simply a coffee origin. It is the origin. Coffea arabica is native to the highland forests of southwestern Ethiopia, and it still grows wild there. Everywhere else in the world — Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, Kenya, Guatemala — grows descendants of a very small number of plants that left Ethiopia and Yemen a few centuries ago. The consequence is startling: the genetic diversity of coffee inside Ethiopia is greater than in every other coffee-producing country on Earth combined. Most origins grow a handful of named varieties; Ethiopian coffee is usually sold simply as “heirloom”, because there are thousands of local landraces and nobody has catalogued them all.
That diversity is what you taste. Ethiopian coffee is famous for aromatics that do not sound like coffee at all — jasmine, bergamot, peach, and in naturally processed lots, blueberry. This is not flavouring; it is the beans, and it is why Ethiopian coffee converted a generation of drinkers to filter brewing, where those aromatics survive rather than being buried under body and roast.
Buy whole bean, and here is the honest reason. Ground coffee loses most of its aromatic compounds within about fifteen to thirty minutes of grinding — the surface area increases enormously and the volatiles simply leave. A week-old bag of pre-ground coffee is a genuinely different drink from the same coffee ground to order. If you have ever wondered why coffee smells wonderful in the bag and tastes flat in the cup, this is very often why. A grinder is the single biggest upgrade available to home coffee, ahead of any machine.
Do not keep it in the fridge. This is the most common storage mistake. Coffee is porous and hygroscopic: in a fridge it absorbs moisture and the smell of everything else in there, and condensation forms on the beans every time you take them out. Airtight, cool, dark, and away from the hob.
And look for a roast date, not a best-before. Coffee is at its best from a few days to about a month after roasting.
Available at Só Verde, an organic concept store in Foz, Porto.
Araku Coffee
Araku Coffee
Araku Coffee
Araku Coffee
