The Naughty Dog Ethiopia Lalesa Lemongrass is another coffee from a special edition designed for pour-over brewing, combining sweetness, higher acidity, and a distinctly aromatic profile. The cup features notes of yellow flowers, raspberries, pistachio pralines, and orange wine. The flavor is lively and fragrant, yet sweet enough to avoid any sharpness. Raspberries bring a juicy fruitiness, pistachio pralines add a delicate sweet note, and orange wine lends the finish a slightly wine-like, more mature character.
The coffee comes from Ethiopia’s Yirgacheffe region and was processed at the Lalesa washing station. The coffee trees here grow at an elevation of 1,900 to 2,300 meters above sea level, in conditions that allow the coffee to mature more slowly and develop more pronounced aromatics. The lot consists of the heirloom varieties 74112 and 74110, and the harvest took place in January 2026. This is a fresh crop, in which both the freshness of the harvest and the clearly traceable origin from the Lalesa processing station play a crucial role. The entire lot is characterized by a combination of high altitude, Ethiopian origin, and carefully segregated production specifically for filter brewing.
The beans are processed using the dry method and fermented with lemongrass leaves. In dry processing, the coffee cherries remain whole after harvest—that is, with both the skin and pulp intact—and are dried without immediate hulling. In this case, lemongrass leaves are also added during fermentation, so this is not a classic natural process but a more experimental approach to working with whole cherries. This method requires careful monitoring of both fermentation and drying to ensure the coffee is stable, clean, and well-defined.