Ethiopia - Sidama Bensa

Sangria in a cup. A natural anaerobic from Tracon in Bombe, 2,300 metres up in Ethiopia's Sidama highlands. It reads like red wine before it reads like coffee: sangria and berry, with a long, clean finish.

Whole ripe cherry is sealed in low-oxygen tanks until the fermentation shifts into a wine-adjacent register. The sangria note isn't an additive. It's what happens when a 2,300 m heirloom is fermented this way. Bombe, inside the Bensa district, is known among specialty buyers for vibrant, berry-leaning fruit when the cherry is ripe and the drying is clean.

Lightly roasted to protect the fruit. Best as filter, pour-over or AeroPress. Let it cool a minute: the berry lengthens and the sangria softens into a sweeter, perfume-like fruit.

• Origin: Bombe, Bensa District, Sidama, Ethiopia
• Producer: Tracon
• Elevation: 2,300 m
• Varietal: Indigenous heirloom
• Process: Natural anaerobic
• Tasting notes: Sangria and berry
• Roast: Light