Flavorful fruit and berry notes, fragrant aromatic hints, and a bittersweet layer that's easily developed with roast. Blueberry, natural dried fruits, marmalade, twist of citrus, black forest cake. City to Full City+.

Fruit forward and flavorful, this dry process lot from Dambi Uddo town pulls out fruit and berry flavors with a layer of chocolate that is easily enhanced with roast development. I noted  very nice berry tones in the profile, from dry fragrance all the way through the cup, aromatic at times, especially in the light roasts, and a bit more jammy and rustic as you approach City+/Full City. The ground coffee has a nice intensity to it, sweet notes of red berries, dried peach, with some depth to the bittersweetness behind it. Pouring hot water on the ground coffee stirred up enticing smells of cranberry sauce, and chocolate-dipped fruits laced with a soft floral accent. At City to City+ roast levels, the brewed coffee produced convincing fruit flavors that at first indicated blueberry, and natural dried stone fruits, then shifting to brighter notes of marmalade-like fruit spreads, and a twist of lime. As the coffee cooled, aromatic notes like Chai spice and florals brought a delicate, fragrant aspect to the aroma, contrasting the heavier fruit flavor profiles. Dark roasts drum up a delicious dark chocolate overlay, syrupy bittersweets, fading to berry jam notes with aspects of black forest cake. Though Dambi Uddo is right up my alley for a dry process espresso, it's not for the faint of heart, so I'm withholding an "official" recommendation as I think it will be too wild for some.

Dambi Uddo is the name of the town where this coffee is from, procured, and then processed at a privately run mill in Woreda Odo Shakiso, Western Guji. Elevation at the farms they buy cherry from range from 1850 to 2200 meters above sea level. Each lot they produce is made up of coffee from hundreds of different farmers in the region, most with only a few hundred coffee trees or less. You tend to see coffee intercropped with other fruits and vegetables, "false banana" being one the more common food staples to see planted in the region. The false banana plant has many uses, and is widely utilized for its starchy inners that are often fermented with yeast to make a bread ("kocho"), and the leaves can be transformed into roofs for houses, baskets, and more. Dry processing is the oldest coffee processing method still used, and involves drying the coffee bean and cherry whole. It's not as simple as casually drying full cherries, and the best lots take a lot of preparation! The coffee has to be spread out to a layer depth of only a few centimeters, no more, in order to allow air flow. The coffee is turned hourly, or even more frequently, in order to facilitate even drying and keep the coffee from molding. It's not difficult, but requires constant attention. Workers continually pull out lower quality coffee in the form of physical defects and coffee that was not harvested at peak ripeness in order to cultivate Grade 1 quality.