This is my third and final review of the coffees I won from Mr. Espresso in an Instagram contest. I really had no idea what to expect from these coffees and I am blown away by how well-roasted they are! I would happily drink their Golden Gate House or Rwanda Musasa Dukunde Kawa any day of the week, and I found both to be excellent dual-use coffees as drip or espresso. The third coffee they sent me is Mr. Espresso’s Worka Sakero, which is only available through wholesale accounts so you won’t find it on their website (although they have other Ethiopian single origins available).
This is a washed Ethiopian coffee from the Kochere woreda. A woreda sounds a bit like a county here in the USA. Woredas consist of groups of neighborhood associations or wards and there are at least 670 rural ones and 100 urban woredas in Ethiopia. Anyway, this coffee comes from Kochere, near Yirga Cheffe and it’s in the center of the coffee-growing universe!
The coffee consists of Arabica “heirloom” varietals (some 4,000 types of Arabica coffee grow in Ethiopia!). Mr. Espresso’s cupping notes for this coffee include raspberry, guava and tangerine and this is considered a light roast from this company. Cupping notes and tasting notes can vary a lot because extraction methods will color a coffee a particular way and influence flavor as well as the fact that violently slurping coffee from a spoon is going to hit your taste buds quite differently from normal drinking!
This coffee is definitely brighter and features its acidity more than the Golden Gate House blend. The Rwanda I loved so much falls in between these two coffees as far as the high note/low note comparison goes. I found this coffee to be clean with notes of lemon in the front of the flavor and a caramel-like finish into the aftertaste. The lemon character became a lot more lime-like to me as the cup cooled and I thought it played with the caramel and sweetness of the coffee very well.
In one of my cups I got a lot of floral notes carried along with the lime acidity, too. I gave this a shot in my espresso machine and it was a little too bright for my taste. For people who like really bright third-wave shots it’d be fine, but I feel in love with Mr. Espresso’s other two coffees as espresso.
What I loved about this coffee is that it had the lemon-lime and acidity I like from wet processed Ethiopian coffees, but it had a more developed roast than a lot of washed Ethiopian coffees I’ve had. That gave it more body, more sweetness, more coffee character and even those hints of caramel. My criticism of ultra-light roasted Ethiopian coffees is that they are often very thin, almost watery, have a tea-like mouthfeel and astringency, and are more like Earl Grey tea than coffee, so this one was right up my alley.
Mr. Espresso impressed the heck out of me with these coffees and I’m very thankful I won that contest and got introduced to an excellent line of absolutely expertly roasted coffees that are as wonderful to drink as they are beautiful to look at. Mr. Espresso has become a go-to brand for me, now!