CROWN JEWEL ETHIOPIA ORGANIC GORBOTA DESTA GOLA DOUBLE WASHED CJO1505 – 28125-2 – SPOT RCWHSE

Position Spot

Boxes 0

Warehouses Oakland

Flavor Profile Cranberry, blackberry, jasmine, rose, hibiscus

Check out our Guide to Ethiopian Coffee Grades

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Overview 

This is a traditional double washed coffee from Gedeo, Ethiopia produced by Desta Gola at the Adame Gorbota Cooperative. 

The flavor profile is iconic and complex, with notes of lemon-lime, mango, intense florals, and hits of kiwi and berry. 

Our roasters noted the green coffee’s density and dryness and encourage you to use plenty of heat. 

Our baristas encourage you to try a lower temperature water with a long bloom time and coarse grind to bring out the best in this coffee. 

Taste Analysis by Chris Kornman 

This Ethiopian coffee from Desta Gola and the Adame Gorbota cooperative is maybe the most complete and iconic example of a washed southern Ethiopian coffee we’ve seen this year. It’s elegantly fruited, incontrovertibly floral, and exceptionally complex without compromising balance. 

The beauty of the coffee’s fruit character is partly due to a lack of overreliance on strictly citrus fruits. This is a deeply intriguing cup, and while there are certainly copious lemon and lime type flavors, they’re complimented in kind by decadent mango, tart kiwi, delicate peach, and even hints of blackberry and raspberry. There’s enough interesting happening in the foreground that it might be easy to overlook the more subtle and unique flavors like ginger, coconut, and papaya. 

Florality in these types of coffees is a prerequisite for excellence, and Desta Gola’s harvest showcases a wide array of intricate notes. Multiple cuppers noted rose, jasmine, honeysuckle, lavender, and hibiscus, with additional mentions of lemongrass, chamomile, and a number of tea-like characteristics from black to oolong to herbal. 

It feels like this coffee has it all. We can’t stop recommending it here at The Crown, it’s one of our favorite pour-overs of the season. 

Source Analysis by Mayra Orellana-Powell 

The creation of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) in 2008 significantly limited full traceability back to specific farmers. In response, Royal established the Single Farmer Lots Program to separate single farmer lots from the larger cooperative blends sold through the ECX. Annual farm visits from Royal CEO Max Nicholas-Fulmer and regular communication with farmers through Haile Andualem, Royal’s representative on the ground in Ethiopia, has been an essential component for ensuring that farmers and washing stations are following strict farm management and post-harvest protocols. The results have been increasing cup quality and higher returns for the individual producers that Royal has come to count on for great coffee year after year. 

Returning to Royal with another amazing harvest, Desta Gola cultivated this single farmer lot on his 10-acre farm near the town of Gorbota located in the heart of the coveted Gedeo grow Zone. Desta has been cultivating coffee since 2013 and with the help of the single lot program he has been able to sell his coffee as a micro-lot in recent years. Coffee is Desta’s main source of income to support his wife and their nine children (6 girls and 3 boys). Ripe cherries for this washed processed coffee were taken to the Adame Garbota Cooperative where Desta is a member. At the cooperative the cherries are carefully hand sorted and floated to remove less dense coffee beans, then depulped, fermented for 48 hours, and washed and classified again in channels. The parchment is placed on raised beds where it is hand sorted again and dried over a period of 12 to 15 days. The parchment is often covered during the afternoons to prevent harsh drying in the intense sun. When the coffee reaches 11 percent moisture content, it is transported to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, to be milled and prepared for export. 

 

Green Analysis by Chris Kornman 

An uncommon display of green coffee excellence here, we have an absolutely prototypical example of classic washed Ethiopian Grade 1 green, with all the dials turned up just a little bit. Incredibly, this repeat-Crown-Jewel producer has practically created a mirror image of the offering last year, with nearly identical green coffee specs across the board. Credit where it’s due, Desta Gola and the Adame Gorbota cooperative are blowing the competition away with their consistency and precision. 

Desta Gola’s coffee comes to us with small screen size, super high density, very low moisture content, and incredibly stable water activity numbers. This coffee is DENSE. Expect to use a bit of heat in the roaster to get it going.  

While there are certainly true heirloom coffees grown in much of Ethiopia, it’s also true that a relatively small number of highly controlled cultivars — both lab-crafted hybrids and selected landraces — are often the main components of specialty coffees throughout the nation. The selections have not been denoted here for us, but it’s fair to assume they are similar stock to the greater southern coffee regions, hardy and well adapted for cultivation in this, one of the world’s most coveted terroirs. 

Diedrich IR-5 Analysis by Doris Garrido 

For this coffee I wanted to bring the floral I knew this coffee has to offer. To obtain this I needed to apply lots of heat during the roast, knowing that a dense coffee like this needs it. This and keeping the roast short was my plan, and I think it went perfectly.  

I started my 5.5lb batch with 435F and 100% gas. I kept the gas to the highest setting and stayed there just before the color change when I lowered it to 30%. That was a great amount of energy to maintain a high rate of rise through the rest of the roast till the first crack. The last gas adjustment I did was after cracking when I killed on the burners. At this point, the rate of rise was 22/60 seconds and I needed it to be lowered to have enough time to develop. I dropped the coffee at 398.9F with 1:11 seconds of post-development time.  

Great tasting notes the next day. This roast achieved a ton of florals, berries, delicate English tea, sweet, blueberries, citrus zest, fresh apricot, fruity, honey, jasmine, honeysuckle, juicy kiwi, lavender, lime, candy, Meyer lemon, mint, passionfruit, rose, tropical and white peach. This coffee was delightful and juicy, clean and full of florals, a great wash of Ethiopia to enjoy. 

Aillio Bullet R1 IBTS Analysis by Evan Gilman 

Unless otherwise noted, we use both the roast.world site and Artisan software to document our roasts on the Bullet. You can find our roast documentation below, by searching on roast.world, or by clicking on the Artisan links below.  

Generally, we have good results starting our 500g roasts with 428F preheating, P6 power, F2 fan, and d6 drum speed. Take a look at our roast profiles below, as they are constantly changing! 

Perhaps the densest of all our Ethiopian releases so far, this lot from Desta Gola is a force to be contended with. You may have seen his name on the Crown Jewel a few times, as I believe this is the third time we’ve featured his coffee. I’ve roasted this coffee on the Behmor 1600+, the Quest M3s, and now on the Aillio Bullet R1 V2 and every time it’s been a complete peach (in more ways than one). 

While my notes from the last crop included ‘purple’ coming to the forefront, this roast brought out more of the peach and fudgy flavors, along with the same incredibly smooth mouthfeel. Still, this seems to be what I’d call a fruity washed coffee, as opposed to a clean and crisp natural coffee as in the case of Marta Alemu’s lot.  

I started out with my high-end charge temperature of 455F, P8 power, and F2 fan like usual, reducing to F1 fan until peak RoR (37F/min) and returning to F2 until just before yellowing. I also tempered heat application to P7 at peak RoR in order to start my slow and gentle introduction into Maillard. At yellowing, I increased fan speed to F4, and reduced heat to P6 shortly thereafter. After a bit, my RoR seemed to flatten out, not spiking before First Crack, and simply wavering around 16-18F/min. At 6:30 / 370F, I moved to P5 and F5, some stats that generally lead to a crash in less dense coffees. In this case, the coffee kept right on through a very soft crack at 7:35 / 380F, and even had a slight spike in RoR only dropping a bit when I increased fan speed to a whipping F6. I was obliged to return to P6 power to get this coffee to 389F in just under 10 minutes, spending 23% of the roast in Post-Crack development. I am thinking I marked First Crack a little bit soon here – it was nearly inaudible on this roast. All in all, this roast may have been a bit of a tough nut to crack, but it turned out well in the cup. 

On my first tasting I got some incredible confectionary notes: raspberry fudge, saltwater taffy, and gummy peach rings. The coffee was very fresh during this tasting, and when I brewed it later, I found even more complexity, such that the notes were a bit tough to nail down. Galangal, candied ginger, and white grape juice were some of my more prominent notes, and when ground, Desta Gola’s coffee had the unmistakable smell of kencur, the lesser galangal root used in a lot of Balinese cooking I find so deliciously compelling.  

This coffee should perform well in any context and is bound to be extra flexible in the roaster as well. With a little less time in post-crack development, you’re bound to see more florals and light citrus notes, but at the cost of some of the sugary dessert notes I mentioned above. Whether you enjoy your coffee as a light espresso at a 1:2.5 ratio, a dark roasted French press, or anywhere between, this coffee is going to shine. Say hello to one of the best arrivals of the year! 

 

Ikawa Pro V3 Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano 

Our current Ikawa practice compares two sample roast profiles, originally designed for different densities of green coffee. The two roasts differ slightly in total length, charge temperature, and time spent between color change in first crack. You can learn more about the profiles here. 

This Ethiopian coffee is quite the standout this season. With the help of Chris, we were able to dissect what your ideal sample roast might be for this coffee.   

Our HD roast nurtured the berry notes and juiciness of this coffee. Some other notes that stood out were nectarine, peach, lemon, honeysuckle and jasmine. While the body is full of these fruit notes the floral notes really clean it up and make for a beautiful cup of coffee.  

The LD roast on the other hand coaxed out a softer version. With chamomile, green mango, white peach, jasmine, and lemon. It showcased what a delicate version of this coffee would look like.

The preference here was towards our HD roast. That high heat and high-density combo has been serving us here well at The Crown. Chris and I much preferred the juicy and clean cup full of those berry and floral notes.  

You can roast your own by linking to our profiles in the Ikawa Pro app here: 

Roast 1: Low Density Sample Roast 

Roast 2: High Density Sample Roast   

 

 

Brew Analysis by Joshua Wismans 

We try not to pigeonhole coffees from any origin here at The Crown. Let each coffee be its own thing. That being said, when this coffee from Desta Gola arrived on our cupping table, this coffee stood out for exactly that – exemplifying what we’ve come to love from Ethiopian washed coffees. Sweet, floral, ripe melon, lemon/lime citrus – it’s all there. When I tasted this coffee I immediately knew it would be featured on the pour-over bar at The Crown. The next step was figuring out what our recipe would be.  

In an attempt to highlight the delicate clearness of this coffee, I gravitated toward the Hario V60 first. With all the brew analysis we’ve done here at The Crown, patterns of solubility and regionality have emerged, and I had a sense that this coffee would need a coarser grind. I didn’t want to go too far, though, and started with a 10 grind on the EK43s. At a ratio of 1:15.79 coffee:water we ended up with a brew with a TDS of 1.57. My suspicions were confirmed. We did need to go a bit coarser. There was still great tropical fruit and black tea in the brew, but it lacked the clarity and delicateness the coffee had on the cupping table.   

For the next brews I tried a grind of 11 on the EK43s and brewed the coffee side by side on the V60 and St. Anthonys F70, mostly to make sure we were on the right track with the V60. We used the same ratio as the initial brews with a bloom of 40 seconds on the V60 and 45 on the F70. These brews were on the right track, bringing out more citrus and floral. Ultimately, we still preferred the V60, with the F70 bringing a bit too much weight to the brew.  

Water temperature ended up being the trick to unlocking this coffee. Keeping the grind and ratio the same as the two previous brews, we lowered the temperature to 199F as opposed to the 203F used on the previous coffees. We also extended our bloom time to a full minute. With a final brew time of 4:10 and a TDS of 1.39, the resulting cup was exactly what we were hoping for. Kiwi and citrus, milk chocolate, hibiscus and lavender floral. We finally had a cup that mirrored what we were getting on the cupping table. 

For this coffee, we recommend a coarser grind with a lower water temperature and longer bloom time, all on a conical brewer.