Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey
Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey

Ethiopia - Alo Village Archers Lot Honey

145.00 Sale Save

lavender, bergamot, mandarine, peach, green tea

Weight 200 grams
Roast Profile Espresso&Filter

Producer: Tamiru Tadesse / Alo Coffee
Farm: Alo Village
Location: Bensa, Sidama
Variety: 74158
Process: Anaerobic Honey
Altitude: 2,450 masl

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Only a year into establishing Alo Coffee Export Plc, Tamiru Tadesse had already managed to foster a commendable reputation among specialty coffee connoisseurs around the world, with a burgeoning client base across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In 2021 Tamiru won 1st Place at the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence & advanced closer toward his goal of bringing greater recognition and rewards to Sidama Bensa coffee farmers, whose hard work and dedication make top-quality coffees possible.

Six years working in coffee, Sidama Bensa-born Tamiru saw the great disconnect between the exceptional flavors and high cup quality potential of his hometown's coffees and the way these were being undervalued across the market. It was also too clear to him how this put the smallholder coffee-growing families and the country's coffee industry at a huge disadvantage.

A friend of Tamiru winning the 2020 Ethiopia Cup of Excellence inspired him to personally contribute to a solution by starting his company, Alo Coffee. Through Alo Coffee, he is able to provide the means for smallholders to process their laboriously cultivated, inherently organic, and flavor-rich coffee cherries into distinctive lots of the highest quality, and then match them with the specialty coffee communities that recognize their value and properly reward it.

Alo Village is the site of the company’s processing headquarters where the coffee growers in the vicinity bring their coffee cherries for post-harvest processing. It is situated at remarkably high elevations from 2,400 masl.

Like the rest of the smallholder farmers in the country, the inhabitants of Alo Village rely on the farmlands granted to their families by the government for income mostly from coffee and food mostly comprising false banana and maize. Since each parcel covers about 1 – 2 hectares at most, coffee yields by household are constrained and volumes do not reach marketable levels, until they are aggregated by producers like Alo Coffee.

On their own, each family and the community do not have the most current knowhow and sufficient resources to increase their farms’ productivity, nor to maintain and enhance the quality of the soils as well as that of their coffee cherries post-harvest. The involvement of quality-oriented and eco-socially committed specialty coffee producers like Alo Coffee contributes to alleviating the livelihood of the coffee-farming families, such as in Alo Village.

To immediately benefit the smallholder coffee growers, Alo Coffee purchases their coffee cherries at a significant premium that provides a decent income to cover household essentials and their children’s education-related expenses.

With a view for the longer term, Alo Coffee also provides direct assistance to the smallholder farmers through knowledge-sharing around better practices in agronomy, cultivation, farm maintenance, and harvesting, while initiating and funding community development projects such as building schools in the communities within their scope.

Further, by overseeing the end-to-end conduct of post-harvest processing, Alo Coffee unburdens the smallholders of the related risks and costs, enabling them to focus their attention and energy on maintaining the natural, unblemished condition of the land and looking after their coffee trees to ensure they flourish.

By association with Tamiru and Alo Coffee, coffee-growing communities like Alo Village also have a better chance of their concerns and interests being acknowledged, advanced, and addressed by influential stakeholders across the industry.

‘Ethiopian heirloom’ is the general term commonly used to identify coffee originating from Ethiopia. It covers two classifications: Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC) varieties and regional landrace varieties. JARC varieties were developed and released to improve the productivity and livelihood of smallholder coffee farmers, to boost the country's coffee industry. 


These varieties are promoted and bred because of their good quality (when grown at the recommended elevations), resistance to or tolerance of adverse elements, and adaptability to diverse environmental conditions. There are 40+ JARC varieties comprised mostly of pure line selections and a handful of hybrids. Regional landraces, meanwhile, are varieties that propagate in the wild, without regulated interventions.



Sidama Bensa-grown 74158, a JARC variety generally observed to express Geisha-esque floral, citrus, and honeyed notes, has consistently ranked among the best at the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence and fetched the highest prices at the auction.

The Archers Lot

Archers Lots culminate our co-founders’ creativity and technical acumen to compose truly artisanal specialty coffee experiences for both the discerning and adventurous specialty coffee connoisseurs, in collaboration with our closest producing partners.

In this Archers-curated 120-hour anaerobic honey process, Alo Village smallholder farmers brought the perfectly ripe, hand-harvested to the Alo Washing Station, where they were screened at the door and then sorted again to ensure uniformity of the ripeness level (visually indicated by color) before being pre-cleaned and then placed in 50-60 KG plastic barrels. This was done to aid in maintaining an oxygen-free fermentation phase throughout the pre-determined 120-hour period, after which the cherries were de-pulped.

Following that, the barrels were emptied onto the raised beds, as the de-pulped cherries spread out in very thin layers, allowing the fermentation juices to sufficiently drain from them. The specific instruction to maintain very thinly layered cherries throughout the sun-drying phase was deliberate, to avoid extraneous microbial activity as the coffees had already undergone the necessary fermentation in the barrels prior. The target moisture level was achieved after 14 to 18 days.

As a result of this process, this cup expresses intense floral and citrus aromatics complementing its sweet succulence, harmonized by a smooth and crisp tea-like character.

brewing guide

- Ready your brewing tools ahead.
- Keep your coffee gear and containers clean.
- Decide and adjust your grind size based on:
— Your coffee’s roast date
— Your brewing method
- Be consistent with water quality and measuring weight, ratios, and time.
- Remember!
— Let your palate help you personalize the best recipe for you.
— Brew often and have fun!

More about Brewing here.

FOR FILTER

  • COFFEE-TO-WATER RATIO: 1:15
  • COFFEE GRIND SIZE: Medium
  • (like table salt; 27-32 clicks in Comandante MK4 and 17-20 clicks in Timemore C2)
  • COFFEE AGE: 7-14 days, ideally
  • COFFEE DOSE: 17 grams
  • WATER WEIGHT: 255 mL
  • WATER TEMPERATURE: 90°C-93°C
  • TARGET BREW TIME: 02:30 - 03:00

FOR ESPRESSO:

  • DOSE: 18 to 20 grams 
  • YIELD: 32 to 34 grams 
  • TIME: 22 to 26 seconds
  • RATIO: 1 : 1.6
  • TEMPERATURE: 90°C - 93°C

MILK RATIO SWEET SPOT:

DOSE

  • 90ml cup: 18-20 grams
  • 120ml cup: 18-20 grams
  • 150-180ml cup: 18-20 grams
  • 210-240ml cup: 18-20 grams

YIELD

  • 90ml cup: 40 mL (split shot)
  • 120ml cup: 20-24mL
  • 150-180ml cup: 22-28mL
  • 210-240ml cup: 30-32mL

TEMPERATURE: 90°C - 93°C

FOR YOUR POUR-OVER

1. Heat water to 90°C-93°C

2. Arrange your brewing set-up.

— Place your dripper on the carafe & filter paper in the dripper.

— Rinse the filter paper with hot water & remove the rinsing water from the carafe.

3. Switch on your scale.

4. Measure out 17 g of coffee & grind to Medium.

5. Place the carafe and dripper with the rinsed filter paper onto the scale, & tare.

6. Transfer the ground coffee to the dripper; then, tare.

7. Start the timer!

First pour to bloom, 55ml for 30 seconds.

Second pour, 100 ml at 00:30.

Third pour, the final 100ml at 01:15

8. Target to finish the brew within 02:30 to 03:00 minutes.

  • 9. Serve & enjoy!

FOR A WELL-EXTRACTED ESPRESSO—

- Align your brewing variables

- Adjust according to specifics of your situation, like your —

— Espresso machine settings

— Portafilter basket size

— Grinder

— Puck prep style

More here for tips to dial in on point spros.