Thick, floral, and intoxicating, this strawberry forward naturally processed coffee is special. This is our third year to offer coffees from the Bensa washing station in Ethiopia. Lively both in flavor and tactile, this coffee presents modern coffee innovation at its finest. Look for compounded flavors as the coffee cools, showcasing a new level of an elaborate sensory experience. BOMBE RELATIONSHIP The producers of Bombe live high in the lush and lovely Bombe mountain valley. They are part of a member organization consisting of 667 producers in various parts of the mountain range, which also include producers from Bombe and Shantawene. We’ve worked with this group since before it was officially founded (more on that below). The last two years, these producers chose to process their coffees through the Bombe Washing Station to our specifications. Like the other coffees from this site, the Bombe coffees are always standouts on our cupping tables. It is dense coffee, with heavy concentrations of the smaller screen sizes (the majority of the coffee screen sizes at 14 and 15), just a touch larger than the average screen sizes found in the Shantawene and Keramo lots, which also reflects a slightly larger concentration of the Mikicho variety than the other coffees have. Mikicho is easily identified by its larger cherries with wavy leaves, the seeds appearing elongated and canoe-shaped. No doubt, this is a distant relative to the Gesha variety, and the prominent cup characteristics that standout in all Bombe lots are lush, tropical fruit tones and delicate florals. Prior to the 2017/18 harvest, this producing group delivered coffee cherries to a different washing station nearby, called Shantawene washing station, where we first encountered the coffees and purchased the mas mixed lots. Up until the 2017/2018 harvest, all coffees from Bombe, Keramo and Shantawene villages were processed together and sold under the name of Shantawene. We were noticing different cup dynamics from the cherries that came from different areas, and eventually began to isolate coffees by village. This led to the move to Bombe site washing station and getting even more isolation in the lots. For the past couple seasons, all producers we work with from Bombe, Keramo and Shantawene all deliver cherries to the more centralized Bombe site Abore Washing Station.