Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Aricha Adorsi G1 Anaerobic Natural 36 Hours

Black Currant, Black forest cake, Blackberry, Dark Chocolate, Plum, Winey

About This Coffee :

THE REVIVAL OF ARICHA
The Aricha Coffee Washing Station is located about 5km from Yirgacheffe—the capital of a district with the same name that is very well known for its coffee. In addition to an ideal climate and geography, the population has a strong connection with coffee production: here, it grows wild in the native forests, and families have been picking, selling and consuming it for centuries now.

Aricha was first established in 2000—back then, it was known as Adorsi. Despite ideal growing conditions, the management didn’t seem to take off; within a decade, the site was almost abandoned.

In 2018, Faysel Abdosh from Testi Coffee acquired the station to revive the area, bring back value to the community and showcase the fantastic coffee growing in its surroundings. While technically not a cooperative, it works as such; producers from the Aricha, Reko, Gersi and Naga Singache neighbourhoods bring their cherries in, and those get processed and sold independently under each name.

Since Testi took over, they’ve contributed to local projects (like building a school and bringing electricity to producers’ homes). Also, they have put Aricha coffee back on the map: in 2019, just one year after reviving the station, four of their coffees made The Ethiopian Cup.

GOOD THINGS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES
This lot features Ethiopian Hairloom, an umbrella term that refers to all the native sub-varietals growing wild in the Ethiopian forests. This area generally delivers Kurume and Wolisho, together with other disease-resistant landraces.

Although the Aricha neighbourhood is the lowest serving to the Aricha station—~1900 masl—, it’s still considered relatively high in terms of coffee growing.

The higher the altitude, the less oxygen is available; hence the plants and fruits take more time to grow and develop. Everything happens slower, and the cherries grow smaller, denser, and full of flavour. As a result, the profile is deep and extremely fruity.

Think about cherry tomatoes versus standard-sized ones in terms of flavour and mouthfeel; here, the altitude creates a parallel phenomenon.

NATURAL ANAEROBIC PROCESS
Similarly to previous VS features Ethiopia Jabanto Carbonic Maceration or Ecuador Terrazas del Pisque, this lot of Aricha features an anaerobic process component in which the cherries ferment in an oxygen-limited/controlled atmosphere.

For this lot, the cherries were immersed and floated in water tanks to remove the low-density (defective) ones. Then, the remaining cherries were placed in fully sealed, air-tight containers, regulated by one-way valves to limit no limit the oxygen intake. Here, the cherries fermented for 7 days until the pH level dropped to 3.8, bringing up a winey, rich and dry fruity profile.

Throughout this time, the fermentation tanks were placed in concrete water baths to maintain a constant temperature between 15 and 18 degrees Celsius, keeping the fermentation very slow. Also, it was homogenized by rotating or moving the tanks.

At the end of the 7th day, the fermented cherries were removed from the tanks and quickly sun-dried until achieving 35% humidity. Then, these were spread on elevated drying beds for 30 days until reaching a final 12% humidity. Finally, the beans were collected and stored in a dedicated warehouse for 4 weeks of resting time until the final bagging and importing.