Ethiopia Dumerso Black Honey

Tasting Notes: Watermelon candy, peach tea, lavender 

Processing: Black Honey

Producers: Hirut Berhanu

Location: Gedeo, Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia

Altitude: 1880-2200masl

Varietals: Kurume, Wolisho, Dega and other heirloom varieties

Bio: (An excerpt from our friends at Catalyst Trade who we sourced this coffee from)

The first step post-harvesting for our Black Honey coffee is a quick hand sorting for consistency in coloration before being dumped into float tanks so that lower-density cherries can surface and be skimmed off for lower grade coffees or local consumption. The higher-density cherries sink to the bottom, displaying their quality by their weight. Lower density cherries are sent to the drying beds to be processed for lower grade coffees and local consumption.

For the higher density cherries, another hand sorting follows the floating process to give good uniformity for pulping. For our Black Honey processed coffees, we calibrate the disc pulper to allow for greater control and speed of pulping, which we take very slowly. The primary goal here is to minimize parchment and seed damage while really maximizing the mucilage content intact before drying. Following pulping, we ferment the parchment slated for Black Honey for a short period of time. Then the mucilageheavy beans are moved to shaded drying beds, where we keep them slowly drying under a shade canopy with excellent airflow. The drying with shade adds 4 to 5 days overall drying time with this Black Honey, and affords us a stable distribution of moisture content throughout the cellular structure, along with a dialed-in water activity (shade drying gives just a little more control than full sun-drying, though it can be a little tricky to cover the parchment at the right times). We find this strong uniformity in the drying of all the coffees is critical in a good honey process.

What is behind the color names? Black, Red and White honey are so called due to the color of the parchment. Black honey coffees carry characteristic black splotches from the heavy mucilage load. Red honeys are also splotched, but less so, with the splotches more red than black. White honey carries the least mucilage and is more yellow/white in hue over all.