Ethiopia Koke Shalaye Anaerobic Filter

Something really special for your pourover, AeroPress, or any filter brewer — expect peach iced tea and jasmine. A light roast best drunk without milk, so the clarity, fruity flavours, and bright acidity can shine through.

If coffee has a spiritual home, it's here. Yirgacheffe — the name translates roughly as "Land of Many Springs" — sits at the intersection of the altitude, soil, and water that specialty coffee has spent decades trying to replicate everywhere else. It doesn't replicate. You just have to go to the source.

The trees themselves are part of what makes this unrepeatable. While most of the world's coffee relies on a handful of known cultivars, the heirlooms grown in Yirgacheffe's gardens and forest plots are a naturally occurring genetic mix that no breeding programme has engineered and no other origin can copy. Then the Koke Shalaye station — drawing on nearby local smallholder farmers — layers a modern anaerobic pre-fermentation on top. Cherries are sealed in tanks for at least 48 hours before being laid out on raised African beds to sun-dry for up to 27 days. The sealed tanks let producers steer the fermentation, pushing the jammy tropical notes further than a conventional natural process ever would. Old genetics, new thinking.

Like all our filter roasts, this is probably not suitable for espresso machines. If you are looking for a better option to brew on your home espresso machine, drink your coffee with milk, or want a coffee with heavier body and texture, safer to choose one of our espresso roasts.

For help choosing your grind setting, click here.