Good morning and welcome to today’s review of an Ethiopian selection from Whirlwind Coffee Co. in Chicago, Illinois! It’s hump day, so let’s just dive right in!
Purchase this coffee directly for $16.75/12oz
Whirlwind of Emotion Behind Madison Street Roastery (article from the Wednesday Journal)
Reviews in this series: High Kick Blend
WHILRWIND COFFEE CO. ETHIOPIA YIRGACHEFFE
Whirlwind Coffee Co. has a whirldwind of a story, to say the least. I featured their High Kick blend about a month ago and people commented on the wild and fun bag art, which was painted by co-owner David Silverstein’s late wife, Elana. Elana died tragically due to a medical error in 2012, and in 2021 David and his daughter, Maya, opened Whirlwind Coffee Co. as a testament to honor her. Formerly the COO of a digital marketing firm, David set up Whirlwind to be able to help his community by giving back 100% of profits to local charities and organizations. Salaries and other expenses are covered first, but any profit remaining goes back into the community, which is just the coolest thing.
The pandemic obviously put a damper on David and Maya’s plans of opening the roastery and cafe, so David opted to delay the cafe (which is now open) and focus on roasting. The cafe opened around February this year and also doubles as a local meeting space for other community organizations and for things like family yoga. Coffee is so much about community, too, no matter where in the world you find it, and companies like Whirlwind Coffee Co. are really living that realization out to the fullest. But, I’ll bet you’re here to hear about some coffee, too, so let’s get to it…
This morning I’m drinking Whirlwind’s single origin Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, which hails from what is considered to be the birthplace of coffee on this planet! Whirlwind is extremely light on the coffee geek side of information on their labeling and website, so this is all I know about the coffee. I have no additional info on whether it’s a natural, washed, where it’s from, etc. Most coffees in Ethiopia are blended from a bunch of smallholder farmers, rather than coming from a single estate. For the most part, farmers have small plots and work in co-ops that have a washing/processing station in the region. During harvest, the farmers bring their coffees to the central washing station, where they’re separated, sorted, combined into larger lots, processed, graded, sold, etc. It’s hard for me to do my usual avoidance of the tasting notes, which are right on the label and read, “Bright notes with blueberry, lemon and floral flavors.” Curiously, these notes don’t lead any insight into whether this is a natural process or washed process coffee. The blueberry I’d expect from an Ethiopian natural (well, berries of some kind are a predominant flavor in Ethiopian naturals, at least), but the lemon and floral notes are more common in washed coffees from this region, so it’s anybody’s guess. We’ll see if my palate can figure it out!
I’m using my standard pourover setup for this coffee, which is a 1:16.5 ratio of 22g of coffee to 363g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin, which is a flat-bottom, 3-hole brewer that uses Kalita 155 filters. I pour through a Melodrip to minimize agitation of the coffee bed and my grinder is an Orphan Espresso Lido 3. This coffee took about 4:20 for the total brew, including a 30 second bloom.
I don’t know if this coffee is a washed or natural (yet), so I’m going into this truly blinded to expectations. The aroma from the cup has some florals and some citrus notes, too. As the cup cools, I’m getting some really nice brown sugar in the aroma, too. Taking a sip, this is a medium-bodied coffee with a lot of sweetness and brightness in it at the same time. This has some tea-like notes and a lot of lemony citrus, so I’m going on record and calling this a washed coffee, rather than a natural. “Washed” or “wet process” coffees are quite common in the Yirgacheffe area, and these tea and lemon notes can be a predominant flavor profile of washed coffees from that area. “Washing” means the coffee is sorted and run through a mill to rupture the cherries and separate the seeds inside, what we call coffee “beans.” These beans are covered in sticky mucilage from the fruit, so they get placed in water tanks where a fermentation process “eats” the sugars and cleans them off, then they are laid out to dry. Natural coffees are dried out in the cherry like big raisins before they are separated, and they tend to have a lot of berry notes, some fermentation flavor notes, etc. At least with Ethiopian coffees, differentiating between a washed and a natural tends to be pretty easy, so if you’re impressed by my palate, don’t be! LOL
Back to this coffee, there is a sugary sweetness to the base of the cup that is quickly followed by a lemon candy acidity that I am really enjoying. In the second half of the sip I’m getting definite peach/apricot vibes, too, and a little bit of this carries over into the finish and aftertaste, too. As the cup cools, the peachy note comes out a little more. This is a nicely balanced cup, with lots of brightness that avoids being abrasive or bracing. There is plenty of sweetness here where the coffee reads like a fruit candy, not like sucking on a lemon, and it’s delightful. Throughout the cup there is a just a hint of black tea, also, and this comes out more in the aftertaste than anyplace else. I’ve had some Yirgacheffes that in a blind taste test would be hard to differentiate from black tea with a squeeze of lemon, and this isn’t one of those, but there is a bit of bitterness and dryness on my palate that adds complexity and also balance to the other components that works perfectly in the context of this coffee.
This is a beautiful coffee (just took a sip while typing this and it was a straight up peach bomb in that sip) that drinks extremely easily and has a lot to love for both the experienced drinker and someone new to single origin coffees. As always, definitely let this cup cool down to around 110F before you start sipping. Patience is very much rewarded with flavor by letting this coffee cool down and open up, and giving your tastebuds a chance to experience it. This is an easy buy, in my book and if you’re buying anything from Whirlwind, do yourself a favor and just add a bag of this to your order, too. Yum yum! (Update: while I was typing my notes into this story I chatted with David on Instagram and he confirmed this is a washed coffee. He has a natural Ethiopian in house, too, so you may want to ask when you order to confirm if you’re getting the same coffee I reviewed here…)