Ethiopia Sidama Chire Kenean Natural G1

Tasting Note:  Orange Peel | Pineapple | Orange | Dried Mango | Caramel

 Size:  200g/1kg

Brewing Recommendation: Filter Brews / Modern Espresso 

This is a natural-process Ethiopian Sidama coffee from the Chire highlands, and it leads with bright pineapple because slow-ripened, high-grown heirloom cherries were dried whole in the sun, driving their own fruit sugars deep into the bean. Orange follows close behind, sitting over a rounder weight of dried mango and caramel.

Where it grows

Chire is a woreda, a district, tucked inside the Sidama zone of southern Ethiopia, up in the fertile Rift Valley highlands. The cherries here ripen somewhere between 1,900 and 2,300 metres, and that matters: cool, thin highland air slows ripening right down, which gives a cherry time to build deeper sweetness and acidity before it is picked. Chire also has its own accent within greater Sidama. Where neighbouring Bensa leans strawberry-tropical and Aroresa runs toward jasmine and black tea, Chire reads nutty, dried-fruit and almost wine-like.

Who is behind it

The lot carries the name Kenean, for Kenean (Assefa) Dukamo, second-generation Deputy CEO of Daye Bensa Coffee Export, a family-owned Sidama exporter that sources from thousands of smallholders and sun-dries its naturals on raised beds across the Bensa, Aroresa and Chire districts. Kenean Dukamo placed second in the 2022 Ethiopia Cup of Excellence, so the hands drying this coffee know exactly what they are doing.

How it is processed

It is a natural, or dry-processed, coffee, which simply means the whole cherry is dried intact in the sun rather than having its fruit stripped off first. As it dries, the fruit's sugars work their way into the bean, and that slow soak is where all the ripe, jammy fruit in the cup comes from. It is graded G1, the top grade for the cleanest, least-defective Ethiopian beans.

In the cup

The aroma opens on orange peel, then the taste arrives tropical and fruit-forward: pineapple first, juicy and bright, with orange right on its heels. Underneath sits a deeper, heavier sweetness of dried mango and caramel, the sort of dark-sugar note a Malaysian palate might file somewhere near gula melaka. It is a natural that is all about ripe fruit and body, which is exactly what Chire and a careful sun-drying tend to give.

Order a bag online and brew it as a pour-over, that bright pineapple really opens up when you give it room to breathe.