Ethiopia Hambela Dabaye

Dried Mango, Nectarine, Jasmine

This show-off washed process delivers fierce aromatics and razor-sharp flavor notes. Its profile is so addictive you might find yourself guzzling multiple cups, skittering around the office like an iPhone on a wood table as the caffeine runs its course—a small penance for such transporting caffeination.

The producer is Kedir Hassan, a figure who’s been drawing serious attention in recent years. Not long ago, he founded the Dabaye station in Hambela, a state-of-the-art facility sourcing harvests from nearby outgrowers. Kedir’s station has turned out to be a David Blaine affair—a place that churns out magical lots which vibrantly showcase the origin's indigenous cultivars.

This G1 coffee (Ethiopia’s top grade) was grown above 2,000 meters, where slow maturation develops dense, complex flavors. To highlight its attributes, Kedir put the lot through a traditional washed process—and hot damn, did he nail it. The thing drinks like fine wine. Maybe better, considering it won’t leave you with a hangover.

So, what does it taste like?

Suppose you took a hunk of dried mango, blended it with fresh nectarine, then misted the purée with jasmine water. Setting aside the mania that that activity would indicate, you'd probably end up getting close to the flavors in this cup. The mango note is dialed to ten, chewy and uber-sweet. It pairs with nectarine acidity and jasmine florals. And that's not all. Some dazzling nuance lurks in the background: crystallized ginger, star fruit, nutmeg, a panoply of flavors that seem to say, So deep is my complexity that you're safe using the word panoply in your product listing.

This is, in short, the kind of brew that could launch a thousand ships. If you're a fan of the origin, get after it while it lasts.