The fragrance from the ground coffee has a richly layered fruit quality, with tamarind, guava, peach, as well as a creamy milk chocolate scent. There is a yerba matte note when pouring the hot water; in the aroma it fades into mango, cooked peach, nutmeg and other warming spices. On the break there is a very intense cherry scent! The coffee has interesting fruit on so many levels that it is hard to list them all. And, with each new roast and each new brew, it shows even more. Many of these cup like dried fruits, like fruit strips, or fruit roll-ups. There is stone fruit, peach and apricot, as well as light plum notes. Mango sweetness comes through, as well as intensely aromatic dried strawberries. The sweetness is mainly fructose, a soft sweet quality, but also somewhat caramely, with vanilla accents. There is a creamy, buttery quality as well, especially as the cup cools. Slightly darker roasts show anise spice, a bit of caraway seed, fresh ginger, sarsaparilla bark, and cardamom. It's a very sweet cup, in particular the lighter roast levels. It needs a few days rest to develop body, and very fresh roasts can have a tight dryness in the finish. And yet, the aromatics are explosive with a short overnight rest on this coffee. Now, this is a bit odd, but we made incredible, I mean ... jaw-dropping incredible ...espresso from this coffee, straight, but it was from some relatively light roasts, City+, with 6 days rest. I didn't think a DP Ethiopia could produce such an amazing shot with such a light roast! If you like wildly bright espresso with an hour of aftertaste, this might be for you; lighter roast, longer rest. It's the nature of DP coffees to have variation in surface color, as well as from cup to cup (or shot to shot). But this coffee has relatively few quakers and shows that more care was put into selection and harvest here.

Chris Schooley adds: The aroma from the beans themselves is powerful. Lots of cherry fruit in the cup right away. Syrupy middle with warm peach and honeydew. Intense candy sweetness, sweet-tarts washed down with fruit punch all though the finish. Spices are laced throughout which add depth and complexity. The dimensions of the cup really expand as it cools, the body gets even more gooey and the finish has even more tang and sweetness.