Ethiopia Bensa Hamasho Station

This lot comes from a privately owned processing site near Hamasho Village, tucked away in the Bombe mountains of Ethiopia's Sidama growing region. Along with coffee from their own farm called "Daye Bensa", they are buying and processing coffee from local farmers from three different growing areas nearby such as Shantawene, Bombe and Keramo villages. This lot is made up from coffees grown by farmers only in Hamasho village, none of their own estate coffee or coffees from the nearby villages are mixed in. The Hamasho site is really high altitude, over 2,200 meters above sea level! It's astonishing, and not only responsible for producing super dense coffee, but you see some smaller size beans too. The station and farms are certified organic too, though we brought in without the certificate this year. But it does mean they register every small farmer who they buy from and certify that organic agricultural practices are being employed at the farm level (they're also Rain Forest Alliance and UTZ certified). A note on the small beans. The majority of the coffee is 15+, but we are spotting quite a few 13 and 14 screen beans in there too. The biggest concern here is that these smaller, lower density beans will roast faster than the largest coffee. While that can be true, we found that either sticking to City to City+ roast range or slowing down the last leg of the roast helps keep the small beans from charring and darker 'roast' flavors at bay. I don't recommend roasting to Full City or beyond for this reason unless you are shooting for espresso. If you're roasting on a Behmor, it's worth giving the grid drum a good shake to let the tiniest fall through the mesh rather than in the bottom of the roast chamber.

Do you have a Bullet R1 coffee roaster? If so, check out our light roast profile for this coffee on Roast World (you have to be logged in).