ETHIOPIA - Sidama Boreta G1

The Flavour Profile

There are coffees that taste like coffee — and then there are coffees that make you stop mid-sip and just smile. This Ethiopian Sidama Boreta is one of those. A single origin natural process coffee, light roasted in small batches by Nick in our roastery just outside Canterbury, it's the kind of cup that reminds you why specialty coffee is so special.

Because it's roasted light and processed naturally — meaning the coffee cherry is dried whole, letting the fruit ferment slowly around the bean — what ends up in your cup is vivid, generous, and alive. Expect bold, juicy berry fruit up front: think ripe raspberries and dark cherry, vibrant and unapologetic. As it cools, a gentle cranberry brightness weaves through, giving the cup a beautiful, wine-like complexity. The sweetness here isn't sugary — it's the deep, natural sweetness of sun-dried fruit, the kind that builds slowly and lingers long after the last sip.

The body is soft and silky — light to medium, with a smooth, clean finish that makes it dangerously easy to drink. Grown at altitude between 1,920 and 2,333 metres above sea level in the Sidama region, that elevation brings a natural clarity and refinement to every cup.

Drinking it black? This is where the Boreta truly shines. Black, it's a fruit-forward, floral experience — best brewed as a pour over, V60, or Aeropress to let the origin character sing. As it cools in the cup, the flavours open up and evolve, so take your time. Filter coffee lovers, this one's for you.

Drinking it with milk? A splash of milk softens the brightness and brings out a lovely berry-cream quality — think summer fruits with a smooth, rounded finish. It works beautifully as a flat white or a gentle latte. Not overpowering, just quietly delicious.

Whether you're brewing your morning filter or exploring specialty coffee for the first time, this freshly roasted Ethiopian single origin will not disappoint. Nick roasts every bag to order — so what arrives with you has never sat on a shelf gathering dust. Want to make it go further? Buy a kilo and get 10% off — the best way to enjoy this coffee while it's here. And if you'd like it ground, just let us know — we'll grind it fresh to your brewing method.

The Little Details

This coffee comes from the Boreta washing station in the Arbegona district of the Sidama region, southern Ethiopia — the birthplace of coffee itself. The station is owned and operated by Asefa Dukamo, who built his first washing station in 1997 and has since grown Daye Bensa into one of Ethiopia's most respected exporting operations, with 81 washing stations across Sidama, Guji, Yirgacheffe, West Arsi, and Kaffa. Smallholder farmers — most working plots of less than 5 hectares — deliver their hand-picked cherries to the Boreta station, where they are processed and prepared for export. The varietal is JARC Selection 74158, a variety developed specifically for the Ethiopian highlands. Grown at elevations between 1,920 and 2,333 metres above sea level, and processed using the natural method, this is a Grade 1 — the highest classification in the Ethiopian grading system.

 

About the Process

Everything starts with the cherry. At harvest time, farmers in the Arbegona district hand-pick only the ripest, reddest cherries from their trees — selective picking at its most careful, because at this altitude and at this level of quality, only the best will do. Cherries are then carried — often by horseback or motorcycle across mountain paths — to the Boreta station, sometimes travelling 2 to 5 kilometres to reach the mill.

On arrival, the cherries go straight into water tanks. This floating stage is simple but vital: ripe, dense cherries sink; underripe or defective ones float and are skimmed away. What remains is a clean, uniform batch of only the finest fruit — the foundation of a great natural process coffee.

For a natural process coffee, what happens next is where the magic lies. Rather than removing the cherry skin and pulp immediately, the whole cherry — fruit and all — is spread across raised drying beds lined with mesh netting. Here, in the clean highland air of Sidama, the cherries dry slowly in the sun. Every 30 minutes, workers turn and rotate them by hand to ensure even drying and prevent over-fermentation. This slow, careful process takes 12 to 15 days, and it's during this time that the fruit sugars from the cherry skin seep into the bean — which is exactly where that intense, jammy fruit character in your cup comes from.Once dried to the ideal moisture level, the coffee travels to the dry mill, where the dried fruit husk is removed by machine — a process called hulling — before the beans are sorted, graded, and packed for export. The Boreta station takes care of its water too: used processing water is sanitised naturally before release, and pulp residue is returned to the farms as fertiliser. From Asefa Dukamo's hillside station to Nick's roaster in Canterbury — every step of this coffee's journey has been handled with care.