Ibrahim Hussein is the third generation owner of the Burka Gudina Estate. The farm is located in the Limmu district of Ethiopia, which is roughly as far west of Addis Ababa as the Harrar district is east and Yirgacheffe is south – a great ring of terrain growing, arguably, the best coffees in the world. Burka Gudina translates to “Where the blessings grow,” and when you taste this coffee, you’ll understand why. A soft natural with juicy-but-restrained fruits, it’s different from most of the Ethiopians we’ve had in recent memory. Recent memory, yeah. But I remember the first real, wild experience any of us had with an Ethiopian natural, and that Sidamo from MAO Horse hit us in the mouth with a load of blueberry. This isn’t that. But it hearkens to it.
VARIETIES No one really knows who first roasted, ground and brewed the seeds of the coffee fruit, but you have to wonder what it tasted like. Some Ethiopian mystic eight hundred years into the current era likely...