Today I’m looking at Sabbath Coffee Co’s second coffee they sent me recently, an Ethiopian from the Nano Challa Cooperative in Agaro. Check out these links for more information and then we’ll see how this coffee is!
Roaster Profile: Sabbath Coffee Co. – learn more about Sabbath Coffee Co. and their coffee philosophy!
Purchase this coffee directly from Sabbath Coffee Co. for $12/12oz
Sabbath Coffee Co. Kenya Nyeri Gatamboya AB Review
SABBATH COFFEE CO. NANO CHALLA CO-OP
Nano Challa Cooperative is located in the Jimma Zone, Oromia Region of southwestern Ethiopia. These may be familiar names to you because a lot of Ethiopian coffee comes out of this region. The co-op has about 350 members and their small farms sit in the 1900-2100masl range. Coffee mostly grows wild in the forests in the area and, for the most part, the coffee here grows on its own without watering, fertilizing or pruning. It grows naturally in the forests as it has from before humans learned how freakin’ delicious it is! The farmers of the co-op are able to simply pick when the time is right and nature does most of the other work! After picking, the coffees are able to be slowly dried in the shade, although this is a wet processed selection. The co-op is well run and they are able to charge a premium for their excellent coffee, so the Nano Challa membership grows year after year!
Sabbath Coffee Co. gives us tasting notes of, “honey sweetness, gingersnap cookie, mild fruit with floral notes” for this selection. I wasn’t getting a ton of aroma out of this cup but, as usual, my allergies have been a little flared up lately, so I don’t think that means anything. Flavors on this coffee are nice, accentuating the sweetness of the coffee and less of the lemon acidity you’d get from, say, a washed Yirgachefe. On the topic of acidity there is a little lemon-lime note up front, but it mainly serves as a counterpoint/balance for the intense honey and, to me, grape-like sweetness of this coffee. There are lots of floral notes along for the ride with all that sweetness and it makes for a beautiful cup. Larger sips reward me with a bit more of the lime acidity on my palate, but this is sweet, sweet, sweet. This coffee has a slightly sweet finish and a lot of body with a lingering aftertaste that, again, washed Ethiopian coffees are not well known for.
Because of some family and work stuff that has taken me away from the blog for the past couple weeks, it had been about two weeks since I’d had this coffee last. I wanted to revisit it as I wrote this article and, even a month off roast, this is absolutely delicious! The balance is spot on and while it’s not going to win awards for complexity, it’s an easy drinker and I think it’d do well as cold brew, too, which is much-needed during this brutal summer weather! Awesome job from Sabbath, again! I hope I get to try more of their coffee when they get new selections in because they impressed the heck out of me with these two coffees from Africa!