Some of the best, most interesting coffees we've ever roasted here at the DoubleShot have been from Ethiopia. The coffees we're about to roast are going to be a pair that you'll be talking about for years to come. I'm not kidding.

I just bought one bag of each of two different micro-lots of coffee from different areas in the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia. One is called Aricha micro-lot 10 and the other is Beloya micro-lot 12. They are both outstanding coffees.

We've never received coffee in this form. The beans were sourced by a man named Joseph Brodsky through the exporter (and miller) Abdullah Bagersh. Instead of putting the coffees on a shipping container on a boat and floating the coffee across the ocean (as is the usual practice), Brodsky had the coffees airfreighted to Denver. In Denver, he repackaged the coffees from jute bags into vacuum-sealed plastic bags. This keeps the coffee fresher before roasting. The result of all this is that you'll get to taste the freshest coffee you've ever had- almost directly from the mill to my roaster to your cup. And you'll notice the difference.

The two coffees are dry-processed coffees, so they have a sweet, fruity character. The methods that the Bagersh family uses to dry the cherries is far more advanced than other places around the world where dry-processing is being used. One big improvement comes from drying the cherries on raised beds so that the cherries get better air-flow, dry more evenly, and are far less prone to rotting or molding. Therefore much cleaner tastes reach your cup with a lot less off-taste. To give you an example, Bagersh is responsible for the Misty Valley Idido we have right now. If you enjoy the quality that has gone into that coffee, you'll love the Aricha and Beloya.

Here's the deal with the new coffees. I'm not going to roast them and let them sit around. These are our high-end coffees for the year. We will be selling the two coffees in 12-ounce quart metal cans for $31 each. You can sign up to purchase as many cans as you want and when we have enough orders, we'll roast and package them and you can come pick them up (right away!). The posters (see above) are on the walls at the DoubleShot, and you can start signing up to buy them, but we won't start roasting until the week of December 15th.

These are coffees that I know you're going to love and talk about for a long time to come. It's something you'll want to share with friends and family at the holidays. Because once they're gone, they're gone.

Amy Ferraris' film The Perfect Cappuccino is playing this sunday (11/9) at 1030a at the Dallas Video Festival.  

Hey, I'm a patriot.

I can't tell you yet what we learned; it would ruin the end of the story.  But I'll tell you about Isaiah's and my trip to Austin Texas for the South Central Regional Barista Competition.