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90

Counter Culture Coffee

Organic Fair-Trade Ethiopia Sidamo Shanta Golba

Roaster Location: Durham, North Carolina
Coffee Origin: Sidamo Province, southern Ethiopia
Roast Level: Medium-Dark
Agtron: 46/55
Review Date: June 2006
Aroma: 9
Acidity: 7
Body: 8
Flavor: 8
Aftertaste: 7

Blind Assessment

Opulently complex aroma: cherry, blueberry, dry semi-sweet chocolate, brandy. In the cup very sweet, gently rich; the chocolate grows rounder and more distinct with continued blueberry and brandy complication. The rich, dry brandy notes dominate a slight astringency in the finish.

Notes

A dry-processed or "natural" coffee, meaning the beans are dried inside the fruit rather than after the fruit has been removed, as is the case with wet-processed or "washed" coffees. A prize winner in the 2005 Ethiopia ECafe Competition, (www.ecafefoundation.org) competition, where as a green (unroasted) coffee it placed third in the dry-processed category, attracting a score of 91.34 from an international jury. Counter Culture Coffee is a small-batch wholesale specialty roaster with a particularly informative and lively website and youthful, enthusiastic leadership. Visit www.counterculturecoffee.com or call 888-238-5282 for more information.

Who Should Drink It

Cautious adventurers: The fruit ferment behind this coffee's cherry/chocolate/brandy character is relatively low-key and pretty much stays out of the way of the heady front-end aromatics.

Explore Similar Coffees

Click here for more reviews from Counter Culture Coffee


This review originally appeared in the June, 2006 tasting report: Readers' Choices: The Lush, the Classic, the Ultra-Dark

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About the Author: Kenneth Davids

Kenneth Davids is editor, chief writer and co-founder of Coffee Review. His latest book, 21st Century Coffee: A Guide is an unprecedentedly thorough survey of specialty coffee in all of its aspects, authoritative yet engaging. He has been involved with coffee since the early 1970s and has published three earlier books on coffee, including the influential Home Roasting: Romance and Revival, now in its second edition, and Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying, which has sold nearly 250,000 copies in five editions..

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