Desalech Musie

Desalech Musiefarms 1.6 hectares around her family home in Harfusa Waro, in Ethiopia’s renowned Yirgacheffe region. She grows heirloom sub-varieties — Kumie, Diga and Wilsho — shaded by acacia and Sudan teak, at 1,902 metres above sea level. The coffee is naturally processed and dried on raised African beds for 18 days, letting the cherry’s sugars develop fully into a cup that’s vibrant but balanced.

Expect apricot, hibiscus, lemon and shortbread — delicate rather than punchy, the kind of complex, understated cup that rewards a clean palate and a little attention. If you’re used to bright, punchy naturals, this is a different register entirely: it doesn’t announce itself, it just sits there, quietly excellent.

Desalech doesn’t hold a Fairtrade or organic certificate — that kind of accreditation is often out of reach for a farmer working 1.6 hectares alone — but the practices behind this coffee, heirloom varieties, careful natural processing, painstaking small-lot care, speak to the same standard those certificates exist to represent. She grows this coffee while raising five children, and this Grade 1 microlot scores over 86 points on the cupping scale, a genuinely exceptional result from a single small farm.

Particularly good as espresso, or lengthened with cow’s milk into a latte — Cara finds alternative milks tend to mute rather than lift the flavour here. Equally lovely black, through a V60 or French press.