Coffee Description
Refined, sweet, with lush rum-and-chocolate-toned fruitiness, this coffee launches with strawberry and citrus aromas, manifesting in the cup with notes of bright lime, kiwi, and berries. Juicy in body, balanced, it offers a rounded, resonantly dry acidity coupled with a full, syrupy mouthfeel and chocolate in the finish.
Roast Level from the Roaster
Refers to the roast level in comparison with other coffees from the roaster
Light
Variety
Process
Natural
Elevation
1850 masl
Region
Oromia
About The Adinews of Ethiopia
Seventy-five kilometers beyond Yirgacheffe lies the farm Hambela, a 200-hectare coffee farm that includes a wet mill, dry mill, drying beds, and parchment storage. It’s a fantastic operation that we have had the opportunity to visit multiple times. However, it's not the most pleasant trip. Thirty hours of air travel to get to Addis Adaba, Ethiopia from Arkansas and then add a 20-hour car ride through some of the worst “roads” you have ever experienced. That being said, the coffee is definitely worth it.
Hambela is owned by three brothers: Aman, Michael, and Tariku Adinew. The property belonged to their parents but had been abandoned for decades until they invested and reclaimed the old family tradition of coffee farming. The farm is certified organic, and the brothers have a tremendous heart for people and quality coffee. Within Hambela there are multiple coffee cherry drop spots. Buku is our favorite macro-lot from within this system.
This year will be the fourth year we have bought both the washed and natural coffees from this lot, and they taste and cup unbelievably. In the cup, you’ll find effervescent lime, bergamot, floral honey, and berries.
Oromia, Ethiopia
Onyx Coffee Lab
Lest the myth perpetuate that specialty coffee does not come from Arkansas, Onyx Coffee Lab is blowing that particular urban legend out of the water while creating a few of their own. Husband-wife owners Jon and Andrea Allen have rapidly taken the coffee world by storm with their combination of art and science.
The magic starts with sourcing, with countless small sample batches from coffee importers and with direct visits to farms around the world. "I know direct trade means a lot of different things to different people, but for us if we don’t put money in the producers hands we won’t call it direct trade," says Jon. Once found, the coffees are carefully roasted in twenty-pound or smaller batches, then shared with the three Onyx cafés and over 150 wholesale customers in thirty states.
Clearly Onyx Coffee Lab knows what they're doing: this northwest Arkansas matrix of coffee know-how routinely cleans house at the U.S. Coffee Championships; Andrea Allen placed first in the 2020 Barista Championship, while Elika Liftee placed first in the 2020 Brewers Cup Championship, and they both went on to the 2021 World Coffee Championships to place in 2nd place for Barista and 3rd place for Brewers Cup. Onyx has been chosen by Architectural Digest as Arkansas' most beautiful coffee shop, garnered multiple Good Food Awards, and been described as the "Best bags of coffee you can buy online" in GQ.
