Messenger Coffee Co. – Wote Konga

Adding to a long list (no complaints here!) of Ethiopian coffees I’ve been drinking comes Messenger Coffee Co’s Wote Konga. This coffee is a natural, high altitude offering from a small co-op of farmers near Yirga Cheffe, Ethiopia and it featured rounder, less aggressive berry jam notes than the usual naturals from this region.

Disclaimer: Messenger Coffee Co. provided this as a complimentary sample for KCcoffeegeek.com’s evaluation. They are not advertisers nor is this a paid review.

I have been drinking a LOT of African coffee, especially Ethiopian, in the past handful of months and I really enjoy coffees from this area. One of my favorite naturals is Messenger’s Adado, which is just unrelentingly full of sweet blueberry, so I was quite looking forward to this one!

I prepared this coffee both as an AeroPress and with the Gino dripper (parameters in the link below my logo at the top of the page). This coffee struck me as being quite clean in the cup with the expected berry jam top notes and lots of sweetness. The acidity came forward toward the middle of the sip and the finish and aftertaste were of dark, fruit forward chocolate. Compared to Messenger’s Adado I found this to be a softer, less in-your-face coffee. The berry notes came up as the cup cooled and then toward room temperature the chocolate notes came forward more. The only differences I noticed in the AeroPress was a bit more acidity and more chocolate in the aftertaste.

This is a good, straightforward and pleasant example of Ethiopian naturals. Overall it’s restrained compared to some others and it seemed more balanced, too. It doesn’t seem to be available from Messenger currently so I either got a pre-offering sample or maybe the tail end of their supply, but definitely look out for this one on their website!