Overview
This is a double washed coffee from Ismel Hassen’s Kayon Mountain farm in Guji, Ethiopia. It is certified organic and Rainforest Alliance.
The flavor profile reminded us of an ice cream sundae: creamy, nostalgic, and delicious we tasted vanilla, fudge, fresh banana, maraschino cherry, and candied almonds, in addition to more expected notes like lemon, black tea, and chamomile.
Our roasters found that this densely layered coffee worked well with faster roasting styles, but encouraged using a lower-than-average airflow setting than you might normally for similar Ethiopian coffees.
When brewed, the team would recommend a flatbed brewer for a more consistent brew, but if you wanted to use a cone brewer just coarsen up the grind a bit
Diedrich IR5 Analysis by Doris Garrido
Guji Zone coffee will always bring excitement to the roasting lab, due to its potential florals and berry fruitiness. The washed processing method simplifies my roasting decision, as I prefer fast drying for this particular cultivar and origin.
For this roast I spent just over 4 minutes drying, starting with a charge temperature of 456F and 100% gas power, running for 3 minutes and 29 seconds. Ideally, I would shorten the drying phase to allocate more time for caramelization. However, as it was my first roast of the day, I believed I had sufficient charge energy, but I didn't, and I was about to shorten yellowing. I tried to manage this by reducing the gas to 45%, or at least I tried…
Sometimes, Diedrich can be temperamental, and on that day the gauge needle fluctuated unpredictably on me. Despite my efforts to calm it down no arguments worked, so I gave up and reduced the temperature to the lowest setting. In roasting time, those seconds are crucial, and by the time I conceded, I needed to slow down the process to avoid losing more time in the Maillard phase. I increase the airflow to 100% from yellowing until the end of the roast looking to reduce the rate of change.
While I typically use as much airflow as possible for Ethiopia coffees, after tasting Isabella Ikawa’s roast of the same coffee, I suggest that using less airflow might better highlight the complexity due the conduction energy during caramelization. And here we have a great source of sweetness to work with. At the end I achieved 2 minutes and 19 seconds on yellowing and 1 minute and 25 seconds on post development. On the table, the aroma revealed the floral notes I love. The taste, while not as floral as on the dry, was satisfying with raspberry, dark fruits like elderberry, with some butterscotch, dried fruits, caramel, orange jam, and tootsie roll, with a zesty finish that I thoroughly enjoyed. A very clean coffee, great representation of this region.
