Ethiopia - Keramo (Washed)

Keramo, high in the beautiful Bombe mountains in Bensa,Sidama, is so remote that the area does not have its own central washing station, so producers bring their cherries to neighboring washing stations for processing, which results in some fun crossovers with other local districts.

Our First encounter with the unique terroir of coffees from Keramo was during the 2015-16 harvests when we purchased them as mixed lots, all sold under the name of neighboring village Shantawene (itself an area that produces amazing coffee). We began noticing different cup dynamics from the cherries that came from different areas, and eventually began to isolate coffees by village. This led us on a journey to get even more isolation in the lots, which continues even today as this coffee was processed on the same site as our Modor Shantawene using cherries brought from Keramo-area smallholder producers. It’s a fun continuation for us of a journey which allowed us to introduce Keramo coffees to the coffee-drinking world at large, and see them very successful.

These coffees continue to stand out as a team favorite on the cupping table. It is a dense coffee, with heavy concentrations of the smaller screen sizes, which is highly unusual and reflects the higher elevations where the coffee is grown.