Siti is an Ethiopian washing station with which the New York-based roaster SEY is collaborating for the very first time this year, and right off the bat, they’ve managed to land an exceptional harvest. In the cup, juicy watermelon, sweet peach rings (peach jelly), delicate white flowers, and fresh citrus acidity unfold—a profile that feels both light and deeply complex
Siti is located in Gedeb, one of the districts of the renowned Yirgacheffe coffee region in Ethiopia’s Gedeo region. Gedeb is the southernmost of these districts, and coffee has been grown here for only one or two generations, so the local coffee trees are among the younger ones by Ethiopian standards. The variety grown here falls under the designation “Ethiopian Landrace,” an umbrella term for dozens of coffee varieties whose genetics have not yet been fully mapped. Ethiopia is, after all, the cradle of coffee, and precisely because of the tradition and political context of the local coffee trade, it is very difficult to obtain a lot consisting of a single variety here. That is precisely why SEY is monitoring the Gedeb region so closely and looks forward to seeing how its potential will continue to develop.
The coffee undergoes a washed processing method, in which the cherries are first harvested by hand at the peak of ripeness, then floated in water to remove defective beans and hulled. The beans are further sorted by density, and only the highest-quality beans proceed to processing. This is followed by a 36-hour water fermentation, which helps develop the resulting sweetness and depth of the flavor profile. Once complete, the beans are dried on raised beds for 10 to 14 days until they reach the optimal moisture content for export.