Roast Level: Medium
Elevation: 1550-2200 ASL
Region: Oromia Region, Ethiopia
Variety: Indigenous cultivar
Process: Full Natural, Organic, Smithsonian Bird Friendly
Tasting Notes: Mixed Berries, Malt Chocolate, & Black Tea
Producer Info: The Oromia Regional State is Ethiopia’s largest, including more than 110,000 square miles and 35 million people. It touches the borders of both Kenya to the south and South Sudan to the west, and includes Ethiopia’s massive capital city, Addis Ababa, along with 65% of Ethiopia coffee growing territory, as of 2014.
There are a number of famous coffee regions included infull or in part
in Oromia: Jimma and Illubabor in the west; Harar to the northeast; Arsi, bordering Sidama in the mid-south, which produces many similar terroirs; and the Guji Zone, where Royal also works with a diversity of forward-thinking growers and processors.
The Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU) is an umbrella organization established in 1999 by 34 individual cooperatives interested in centralizing resources and gaining leverage in the export market. As of 2020, OCFCU supports more than 400 individual cooperatives more than
400,000 households, by far the largest unionization of farmers in the country. Premiums from coffee exports are returned directly to farmers, and the union also funds organic farming programs, mill equipment purchases, and food security programs. OCFCU has established a central cupping lab to support quality control and is a founding shareholder in its members’ bank, the Cooperative Bank of Oromia, that provides pre-harvest financing and crop insurance; both resources historically unavailable to rural farmers in Ethiopia. OCFCU has been Fairtrade and Organic certified since 2002 and ever since has been one of the world’s largest suppliers of Fairtrade coffee.
Description: On the nose, you get notes of berries, mango, and sweet florals. Then on the front end, some of those notes translate immediately on the palate, with notes of berry sweetness becoming very present. Accompanying the juicy body, you will pick up on notes of chocolate sweetness and richness. The mouthfeel is round and full, reminiscent of malt, and this cup finishes smooth. This cup also becomes very expressive as it cools bringing a more tea like aftertaste in the cup.
Shelf Life: An unopened bag will remain tasty for five months due to our processes and packaging. We remove most of the oxygen from each bag during our packaging process and replace it with food-grade nitrogen to lovingly cradle these precious beans for a long time. We use the highest quality bags with one-way valves to retain the low-oxygen environment we create and allow our coffee to off-gas naturally.