Good morning and welcome to today’s review! I’m checking out the last of three coffees sent to me from Bespoken Coffee Roasters and this is their Tega & Tula, a washed coffee from Ethiopia.
Purchase this coffee directly for $17.50/12oz
Other reviews in this series: Guatemala Octavio Hererra | Guatemala Linda Vista
BESPOKEN COFFEE ROASTERS TEGA & TULA
Bespoken Coffee Roasters was founded in Corvallis, Oregon by Collin and Ann Schneider. They also partnered with some other folks to open a cafe called Tried & True. Bespoken is currently roasted out of Tried & True’s second location in Corvallis and the cafe and roastery are both well-regarded, according to my research. I absolutely loved the two Guatemalan coffees BCR sent me (links to those reviews above), so I’m excited to head to Africa with them and to try this morning’s coffee out.
Today’s coffee is a washed coffee from the Limu region of Ethiopia, grown at Tega and Tula Specialty Coffee Farm. Tegs & Tula is named for the two neighboring villages and coffee grows at 1800-2100masl at the farm. This coffee lot is a mix of wild Keffa forest coffee, as well as 6 others that are simply numbered varietals like 75227 and 74110. Bespoken gives us tasting notes of, “delicate and floral with bergamot, jasmine tea and citrus” and also states, “The cup is vibrant and clean while boasting a ton of tangy fruit, citrus and chocolate. If potpourri tasted how it smelled, but better, it would be this coffee.”
I’m using my standard pourover method of a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin dripper with Kalita 155 filter. My grinder is a Knock Aergrind and I pour through a Melodrip to minimize agitation during brewing. This coffee got a 38 second bloom and came in with a total brew time, including the bloom, of 4:24.
It’s allergy season for me and I’m a little plugged up, so I am not getting much of interest in the aroma to share with you, but that could easily be my nose, not this coffee! Taking a sip, this is a medium-heavy bodied coffee with a lot of juicy citrus right up front. I can already tell this coffee is going to be a gulper and I’ll need to exercise some restraint so I don’t just chug it down and miss all the flavors! Right in the front of the sip there is a lot of citrus… I’m getting an orange note that isn’t quite orange… there’s orange juice here, maybe more tangerine than orange because it’s sweeter and lighter, and then there is also a lot of lemon candy acidity coming in right with that orangey tangerine note. It’s really delicious and juicy, that elusive quality in a coffee that feels like your taste buds are squeezing your salivary glands and making you salivate for more. All that citrus in this cup is awesome, and there is also some tropical fruit notes hiding among the orange, tangerine and lemon trees. I can’t necessarily pin an exact flavor onto it, but it’s like if a mango and a pineapple had a child. It rides in the background behind the tangerine and lemon acidity, but it gives nice dimension and complexity to this coffee. This coffee gets body and sweetness from a honey-like base, but it feels like the sweetness is coming right from all those fruit notes, like their juice is squeezed into the cup. This coffee realy has a big presence on my palate, even hitting the roof of my mouth and the back of my throat and soft palate with citrus sweetness and brightness. Despite all this fruitiness, this is a balanced coffee and isn’t harsh or overly “acidic” even though all this citrus flavor is from a variety of acids in the coffee. This coffee finishes sweet and leaves a lot of tangerine and some baking spice notes in the aftertaste between sips, maybe just a hint of tea as well, although the way this cup came out I would not say I caught many overt tea notes as I was drinking.
This is a great coffee and I’m loving it! The label art is fantastic with those bright, colorful flowers that are beautifully painted on a black background and it matches the fruity vibe of the cup. This is a structured coffee that is juicy and big and has a heavy presence, yet, at the same time, feels nuanced and light and airy at the same time. The flavors are stunning and this coffee is like a perfect homage to the end of summer, for me.