Idido - Aricha Microlots

We're thrilled to finally invite you and all your friends to the launch of our new coffee:

Idido Mill
Aricha Microlots 2, 6, 8 and 20
Yerga Cheffe
Ethiopia

Friday November 14th 2008
15:00 - 19:00

We'll present two different roast profiles of the Idido; a light roasted and a dark roast (espresso).
The Idido will also become a part of our new espresso blend.

We'll cycle through the different microlots in due time, indicating the current lot on the bag. Exclusively on this day you will be able to try all of the four lots at the same time!

Back in November last year Peter visited the Idido mill on his trip to Ethiopia.
Read Peter's field trip reports: Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3.
You can also see all his pictures on Flickr.

The Bagersh family have been producing coffee for generations. The oldest son, Abdullah, had often heard his grandfather tell how the coffee used to be more aromatic in the old days. Today, gourmet coffee is often washed coffees, where the coffee cherries have been de-pulped within 24 hours after harvest. Abdullah, however, began experimenting with the traditional Natural method, in which the whole coffee cherry is dried over a period of time. This method is almost any where else only know as an inferior method giving dirty coffees with lots of defects. Through the last 7 years the Bagersh family have optimized the Natural process at the Idido mill in the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia. The drying takes place on 'raised beds'(see picture below) and all during the drying proces cherries are carefully turned over and sorted by hand. When the cherry has dried in to what looks similar to a raisin, the dried husk is hulled off and the beans separated. In the very carefull way this is done at the Idido mill the post-harvest processing reminds us of the post-harvest processing of the Amarone wine. We truely belive that the flavour of this coffee is at least as outstanding as that of great Amarone wines!

It's a wildly aromatic coffee with an intense strawberry and bergamot aroma. In our two different roast we bring out this aroma in unique ways. In the (very) light roast the intense aroma is the dominating overall characteristic of the coffee. Even when just opening a bag of whole beans there's no doubt - the aroma reveals it's the light roasted Idido coffee.
In the darker roast its very interesting as SO espresso shot in which a similar strawberry-like aromatic experience hits the nose even way before the cup is close! Prepared this way the coffee also excels as having an extreme smoothness and tingling acidity.

We have worked a lot on getting the right balance in our espresso blend. Of course the sweetness and smooth oily body of the espresso is just getting better with the Idido supplementing Daterra and Finca Vista Hermosa. We wanted to keep the chocolaty taste balance and marzipan notes which has been characterizing our espressos so far. But at the same time we wanted to add the Idido in a way where the Strawberry aromas could work as subtle top-notes which would be brought out only by careful barista work. Therefore we had a bag brought in by air two months ago. In the meantime we have have been trying out lots of roast profiles and blends. This work has taking some time since we wanted to let the coffee rest at least 10 days (in gasflushed valvebags) before tasting. Also we preferred to taste the coffees before noon to have the best working tastebuds and we wanted to taste it as straight espresso and not having more than approx. 6 shots in a session! We believe by now we have reached an espresso which is ready to be presented - and we are looking very much forward to getting your response!

So Friday the 14th we'll let you taste the coffees for free in our coffee shop. Come and join the fun!