We roast Arara light on our fastest roast profile with filter brewing in mind. This brings enough heat to open the aromatics without adding roast character to mask. Dried mango comes through first over a dense base of allspice sweetness that holds layers of flavours in place. Coconut, banana and ripe apricot combine effortlessly and delicate florals build through cooling. A pink grapefruit acidity, juicy rather than sharp, lifts the cup and leads onto a winey and integrated finish, carrying the fruit forward rather than cutting it off. The mouthfeel is viscous but open, closer to sugar syrup than a creaminess.

The Arara farm is part of the Duka project by Daye Bensa, our exporter in Ethiopia. Duka gives the team room to process individual cultivars and work with modern post-harvest techniques, lot by lot. The processing is where this becomes a rare selection, beyond that of a classic natural Sidama. Ripe cherries go into sealed, oxygen-free tanks for 120 hours. Without oxygen, the microbial work shifts to lactic and acetic routes. That shift is where anaerobic coffees get their deep sweetness and their winey finish. Then the second move helps create and define the flavour profile further. The cherries dry inside a temperature controlled dark room, not out on raised beds in the sun. The dark slows the drying and holds the temperature even, keeping the fermentation character in place rather than cooking it off the surface at raised temperatures. What comes out when dried is a flavour profile that has Sidama terroir carried through a long, controlled fermentation. The fruit and the florals still legible under a deeper sweetness and a winey edge.