Vesta Coffee Roasters Ethiopia Kochere Natural

We’re back in Ethiopia this morning, by way of Las Vegas coffee roasters, Vesta Coffee Roasters. I really enjoyed their Peru Amaymabma (link to the review below) and so I am excited to try this natural Ethiopian out and see how it tastes! Come along for the ride!

Vesta Coffee Roasters

Vesta Coffee Roasters Peru Amaybamba review

Sprudge Build Outs of Summer article on Vesta (Sept. 2016)

Sprudge’s Coffee Lover’s Guide to Las Vegas


VESTA COFFEE ROASTERS ETHIOPIA KOCHERE NATURAL

Vesta Coffee Roasters is a coffee roaster and what looks like an awesome cafe in the heart of downtown Las Vegas’s arts district. They’ve been open a little under a year and have garnered a good reputation with locals and visitors. Check out my Amaybamba review and the Sprudge article, linked above, for more backstory on Vesta. Today I’m checking out Vesta’s natural Kochere from Ethiopia and unfortunately I don’t see it on their current list of offerings on their website, but I also didn’t see any “sold out” or “getting close to the last few bags” social media posts, so I don’t know if it’s just out of rotation for a short time or if it’s gone for good. Keep your eyes peeled and fire a message to Vesta if you’re interested in this coffee. They have a couple of good-looking washed Ethiopians, one from Ninety-Plus, up right now, though, too… Of course, the flavors will be totally different.

So, what I do know about this coffee from the packaging is that this is a natural from Kochere in the Yirgacheffe area of Ethiopia. It’s undoubtedly a coffee lot from a washing station that compiles many smallholder farmers’ crops into larger lots, so it’s a mix of heirloom varietals, most assuredly. Vesta gives us tasting notes of, “Strawberry cream, blueberry, cola” for this coffee, which sounds great! I am using my standard pourover setup of a 1:16 ratio of 28g of coffee to 450g of water in a notNeutral Gino dripper. My Handground grinder is set to three and I use Third Wave Water for all my brewing needs.

In the aroma from this cup I get a little bit of cola and also hints of strawberry or berries in general. Maybe some floral notes, too, although those aren’t very prevalent for me. This is a medium bodied coffee with a pretty intense flavor that drills into my palate and a finish and aftertaste that last for a long time. I’m getting a lot of very ripe strawberry that has just started to ferment a bit and a lot of cola notes in this coffee, too. I’m not getting any blueberry out of this coffee, but I am getting some raspberry and a floral-tinged berry note that I always associate with blackberry. Some Ethiopian naturals can come off really candy-like and alsmost a bit cloying, but this is not one of them. There is a bit of fruit-peel astringency that accompanies the flavors and adds a bit of a tea-like mouthfeel to the cup. There are some floral notes that add complexity, and there is a lemon-lime candy acidity that adds some tartness and a hint of bitterness right where it’s needed. Overall I would call this a generally clean tasting coffee, but there is a little fruity ferment going on, too, and all of those notes add up to something complex and “adult” rather than a sweet, candy-like berry bomb (which I do enjoy, also! LOL).

While I don’t get actual wine notes from this coffee, there is certainly a wine-like complexity to it in the way the fruits are presented, giving this coffee an air of sophistication, too. Just like the Costa Rican yellow honey I reviewed yesterday that seemed very “adult” in its presentation of the flavors that could’ve easily been cloying and too unbalanced toward sweetness, this Ethiopian from Vesta does the same thing, albeit quite differently. If Coca Cola made a strawberry Coke drink, this would be it, but it doesn’t have the sugariness that beverage would, either. This is a nicely balanced coffee with a lot of structure, giving my palate an easy time of sussing out all the complexities of this coffee. Very awesome! I have a message in to Vesta and I’m waiting on a reply to see if it’s gone or just out of rotation, so I will update the review as soon as I find out!