August 2014 - Ethiopia Limu

Date Posted:1 August 2014 

            Ethiopia Limou

                Ethiopian Limu Coffee Beans

Ethiopia is often referred to as the spiritual home (and sometimes incorrectly, birthplace) of coffee.

History buffs would quickly correct that statement by declaring technically, it is actually Yemen, but with such a very small and often low sporadic volume of trade in Yemen coffees there seems to be an almighty gravitas towards Ethiopia as the physical location where coffee as a serious commodity was developed and it's heirlooms propagated around the world.

For this reason, Ethiopia coffee beans are held in such high regard in the coffee industry - every roaster carries Ethiopian coffees and it's often referred to us roasters as the "weapon of choice".


Ethiopian coffees, like most African coffees, deliver high levels of intensity......they punch well above their weight. Whether it's a soaring sweetness, berry infused fruit-bombs or extraordinarily long finishes, Ethiopian coffee beans are the "feature or highlight" of any blend.

Coffee from Ethiopia can out-gun and out-point just about any other origin on it's day. The complexity in the cup is nothing short of amazing - rich cocoa, red berries, lemon and lime citrus explosions and a thick, syrupy finish like no other.

In order to understand Ethiopian coffees, you need to be aware of the 5 basic types.

Any discussion about Ethiopian coffee will be long and detailed. For this article, we will highlight the character of Ethiopian coffees and introduce you to the 5 types and focus on the Limou as our feature coffee for August 2014.Each of the types will produce a diverse range of cup character and the types are often treated as their own entity - just like they were a different origin altogether.

Yirgacheffe is referred to as the "king of coffees". It is the high grade, cream of the crop lots from the region known as Irgacheffe (no "Y") and we call these "Yirgys" for short. Yirgy's have a clean, crisp citric acid with floral notes and a lemon and honey finish.

Sidamo is in the southern central province and is a prolific producer of quality coffees. Sidamo coffees can be some of the most intense and complex cups found in Ethiopia and provide a rich berry note (red or black) and at times chocolate in their flavour delivery.

Harrar is one of the original and oldest areas with very low crop yields. Most of the coffee from Harrar is natural (sundried) and remains highly prized by roasters. Unfortunately, over the last 10 years, the quality of Harrar coffees has declined as many farmers in this region opt to grow alternative non-coffee crops with higher yields that can be converted to cash faster than coffee. Harrar is one of those dangerous coffees that can be like a double-edged sword - mind-blowing blue-berries and spice one minute, then rough, astringent ferment the next. When a Harrar is good, it can blow away anything else on the table. The challenge of course is that good lots are often encased in "average and poor" coffees.

Djimmah - the poor cousin and a coffee with tremendous bite that is not always clean. Known to have a pretty rough cup and is generally relegated to the commodity grade market. Many mass-produced coffees contain a proportion of Djimmah to give some kick, e.g. capsules/pods, instant coffee, supermarket coffee, etc.

This brings us finally to the feature coffee this month - Limou (or Limu for short). Limu is generally a fully washed coffees and has a remarkable similarity to Sidamo and to a lesser extent Yirgacheffe. Limu is generally more consistent in the cup and can deliver a clean, reliable burst of flavor and acid.
We have used Limu coffees for more than 7 years, yet we only decided to start selling Limu as a single origin in August this year.
Why ? well, the answer is neither simple nor short.

Ethiopia is perhaps one of the most difficult origins to source quality coffee. Stock is often trapped on the wharves in Ethiopia for weeks at a time due to a complex set of political and infrastructure issues - being trapped for weeks in searing heat = degraded quality.
We always hunt for and locate quality Limu - it is a regular in our lineup.
We consider Limu to be a fundamental (and critical) element in most of our blends, so we tend to act conservatively in reserving our holdings of Limu for our blends. Limu is what gives our blends a highlight and we have in the past tended to feature only Sidamo and Yirgacheffe coffees as single origins because we know the cup character of those coffees will change with every new pallet of coffee that arrives into our warehouse.

In early July 2014, we came across a very special Limu. It was an ugly looking coffee with a diverse range of screen size ranging from 10% at small peaberry and the remainder varying from screen 15 - 17.

This new Limu is quite extraordinary. Clean, bright, super-sweet with lime and apricot notes and a heavy cocoa finish.
Over the last 4 weeks, we have ripped through more than 3 tons of this Limu and with just a few tonne remaining, we thought it would be good to let our mycuppa newsletter customers in on the opportunity before it was all gone.

We have listed a quality Limu as a single origin offering. It is superb in the cup and takes some of the best attributes of Yirgacheffe and the Sidamo coffee with that crisp, sweet finish that scores 84 points - well and truly specialty coffee.

As a black, or in milk, we think it is delightful.

We are all out of this coffee in 2021 sadly. But we have many other single origin Ethiopian coffees to choose from here.