Ethiopia Sidama Bombe Natural Coffee

A small-lot natural from Bombe, a village in the Sidama highlands of southern Ethiopia. Drying the cherries whole gives it high-toned strawberry and hibiscus aromas over a base of red grape and red apple.

Origin & Story

Sidama is one of Ethiopia's most famous coffee names and, since 2020, also one of its regions, because the Sidama people voted that year for a regional state of their own. Its highlands produce coffee with berry and citrus notes and lively acidity, grown at elevations between roughly 1,500 and 2,200 meters.

Bombe is a kebele, the smallest administrative unit in Ethiopia, in the Bensa district, named for the mountain the village is built on. Farms there climb to around 2,000 meters and higher on iron-rich soil, and that altitude is a big part of why the coffee is so bright and so aromatic.

The farms are small, and nearly all the work of growing and drying is still done by hand. For a natural the cherries are dried whole, so picking only fully ripe fruit matters: anything underripe or overripe ends up in the cup. Because the coffee is sold in small lots, the name of the village on the bag is a real guide to where it grew.

The profile reads like a fruit bowl. Strawberry and red grape come first, then a perfumed hibiscus note, and red apple as the cup cools. This is a coffee that changes as it comes down from hot, so it is worth drinking slowly: give it a minute and the red apple appears.

Reading the Flavor Profile

These values are comparative editorial positions within our own catalog, calibrated so entries can be ranked against each other. They are not laboratory measurements.