Ethiopia Guji Natural Coffee

A natural-process coffee from Guji: the cherries are dried whole, so the sugar and aroma of the fruit soak into the bean. In the cup it tastes like blueberry jam and jasmine, with a hint of cocoa nib.

Origin & Story

Guji is one of the newer names on the specialty coffee map. The Guji Zone lies in the south of Ethiopia's Oromia Region and was only created as an administrative zone in 2002. Its coffee grows at about 1,800 to 2,200 meters, and the highest lots come from districts such as Uraga, Shakiso and Hambela.

Natural processing is the traditional way of making coffee in much of Ethiopia. Ripe cherries are picked and laid out to dry whole, with the fruit still on, instead of being pulped and washed first. In Guji, producers dry them on raised beds that let air move underneath, often for around three weeks, turning them regularly and sorting by hand.

The trees are not one variety. Ethiopians call their local coffee heirloom, which is a catch-all for thousands of landraces that grew wild in the forests, along with a few dozen selections made by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center. Two of those, numbered 74110 and 74112, are widely planted in Guji.

Drying the coffee in the fruit is what gives it this cup. Sugars and aromas from the cherry pass into the bean, so you taste blueberry jam, with jasmine on top and cocoa nib in the finish. It is the kind of coffee that smells like an open jar of jam before you take a sip. A clean paper-filter brew, like the V60 recipe here, shows it off best.

Reading the Flavor Profile

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