Christmas Coffee
Christmas Coffee
Christmas Coffee
Christmas Coffee

Ethiopia

Christmas Coffee

Black Honey

£15.00

Ripe, juicy blueberry over a dense Christmas fruit cake base. Treacle, pecan and rum raisin meet festive clementine zest.

Roast Level: Medium Light

Type: Single-Origin

Origin: Ethiopia, Africa

Region: Gedeb district, Gedeo Zone, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region

Farm / Producer: Lalesa Washing Station

Altitude: 1900m – 2150m asl

Cultivar: JARC Speciality Cultivars and Local Yirga Chefe/Sidama Landraces

Process: Black Honey

Medium light roasted. Blueberry and sweet brown spice lead over a Christmas fruit cake base of treacle and toasted pecan. Zesty clementine and a round, smooth oolong tea finish.

Hybrid Brewer (Switch/Clever)
Dose: 24g
Water: 420g
Water temp: 93°C
Target time: 3:00–3:30
Pours: 1 (pre-infusion 120g) + 2 (drawdown 2 x 150g)

Pour 120g of water in first, add the coffee, and steep for one minute. Then drain and add the remaining 300g over two pours of 150g. The Hybrid Brewer improves pre-infusion, making it a consistent way to get a great cup at home. With this method Lalesa drinks full and sweet: blueberry and brown spice up front, the fruit cake base underneath, and clementine zest in the finish.

  • Pre-order now and we roast, pack and ship from 14 December, so it arrives safely before Christmas.
  • Sending it as a gift? We email your recipient with your message when it ships.
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Berry and dried fruit, toffee and brown spice belong in Christmas food and winter celebrations. They are the very reason we chose a micro-lot from the southern highlands of Ethiopia as our Christmas coffee.

It comes from Lalesa in Gedeb, in the south eastern corner of the Gedeo Zone, closer to Guji than to much of the rest of Yirgacheffe. Processors here say their coffee is neither Yirgacheffe nor Guji. Growers work above 2,000 metres, an altitude widely credited with the sweet, fruit forward character of the district.

Wubit Bekele grew up in Nekemte, a well known coffee area in the west of Ethiopia, and spent years at a large exporter before she founded Ephtah. Its coffee now comes through relationships with growers across the south. Lalesa was then built from scratch in 2023 around three things: the women who pick and process the coffee, the communities around the station, and the quality of the cup. Ephtah trains women in production and quality analysis, and at harvest runs a daycare centre for growers’ children.

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With a medium light roast ripe blueberry and sweet brown spice lead from the first taste. Lalesa has the feel of Christmas fruit cake, dense, with notes of treacle, toasted pecan and dried fruit. Clementine brings a bright zesty acidity before leading onto a rum and raisin finish. The mouthfeel is round and smooth with an oolong tea finish.

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With quality, as a small independent processor Lalesa have more freedom to experiment in coffee processing after harvest and to offer a wider range of flavour profiles. This black honey process coffee represents it well and is a method still unusual across Ethiopia. After floating, the team rests the whole cherry for a full day on raised beds, then depulps it, and returns it to shaded beds with the mucilage left on for around three weeks. This stretched fermentation both in fruit and out is where the fruit forward profile comes from.

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