This Ethiopian coffee is perfect for rainy days when you want something sweet and full-bodied in your cup—yet playful enough that you’ll enjoy discovering its hidden layers. Ethiopia Gatta – Rainy Day Filter from the Czech roastery Oh My Bean offers notes of peach, juicy grapes, and honey, which, when brewed more lightly, shift toward a delicate tea-like and floral character. The coffee has medium acidity and body along with high sweetness, so it can come across as distinctly fruity, but it also reveals a more delicate side when you adjust the brewing method. It’s precisely this versatility depending on the preparation that makes it a filter coffee you can experiment with—by adjusting the coffee-to-water ratio, you can highlight either the fruitier or the more floral notes.
The coffee comes from the Sidama-Bensa region and the village of Shantawene, home to the Gatta processing station. The station is operated by Daye Bensa, a company founded by Asefa Dukamo that collaborates with smallholder farmers in the surrounding area. The variety is labeled “Heirloom,” a collective term for a broad group of Ethiopian genetic variations. In recent years, the Shantawene area has emerged as a distinct microregion where, alongside traditional methods, more modern processing approaches are also employed.
At Gatta, the honey method is used. After harvest, only the skin is removed from the coffee cherries, while the sweet pulp, or mucilage, remains on the parchment throughout the drying process. The beans are neither washed nor soaked in water but are placed directly onto raised drying beds. There, they dry in the sun, are turned regularly, and are protected from the intense heat by the shade of the surrounding natural forest. It is precisely this contact between the beans and the pulp during drying that helps create a more pronounced sweetness and a fuller body. In this coffee, this translates into honey-like sweetness, juicy fruit, and a gentler, tea-like floral finish, thanks to which the honey process falls somewhere between natural and washed processing in terms of flavor.
- Elevation: 2,120 to 2,210 m above sea level
- Processing station: Gatta
- Processing: Honey