Ethiopia Organic Agaro Duromina

The dry fragrance is front-loaded with a sweetness of clover honey, with fragrant sugar accents adding depth, along with peach/stone fruits, and a whiff of orange. Adding the hot water only works to enhance the honeyed sweetness scent, and the crust smells saturated with brown sugars, and fruits more of a background attribute at this stage, though still lean toward the stone fruit end of the spectrum. The cup flavors echo the aromatics in multi-layered fruit tones, with subtle fruit-floral hints, and not-so-subtle underlying sweetness. City roasts make for the brightest cups, with tangy aspects  of orange and some peach skin felt at the sides of your tongue, a nice contrast to the saturated red honey flavor in the cup. Fruited flavors accent the base sweetness as the coffee cools, and my list included fresh apricot tea, orange marmalade, and a really nice malty flavor that reminded me of peach ale. A floral aroma is most prominent in light roasts and shows elements of ripe peach, and also a hint of lilac. Body is boosted with darker roasting, but Duromina showed tactile appeal at every roast level we tasted. City+ roasting brings out a somewhat subtle chocolate tone, and fruited flavors thankfully are not compromised, pointing to natural dried date and apricot. The acidity level is moderate in comparison to some of the Yirga Cheffe's we've carried, but structuring none the less. I experimented with taking a roast into 2nd Crack, but thought the flavors fell flat, with roast bittering overpowering the cup. City/City+ is where I think Duromina brews best, and Full City being the darkest roasts where you can still expect some of that fruited sweetness to thread the bittersweet cocoa tones.