The End of the Road

Kercha is not easy to get to. The roads into this district of Guji Zone — southern Ethiopia, Oromia Region, where the highlands begin their long descent toward the Kenyan border — are unpaved and deeply rutted. During the October-to-January harvest season, when the rains arrive, they become impassable for days at a time. The coffee that comes out of Kercha has to earn its exit. It travels by motorcycle, by donkey, by whatever vehicle can make it through the mud. By the time it reaches the dry mill in Addis Ababa, every bean has a story.

This isn’t romance. It’s logistics. And it’s why Kercha naturals taste the way they do. Isolation has kept this district from being absorbed into larger, more accessible Guji blends. The washing stations here are smaller, the relationships between farmers and processors more direct. The coffee that leaves Kercha hasn’t been homogenized into anonymity. It tastes like where it’s from — and where it’s from is a place most coffee buyers never see.

Grade 3 natural is a different animal from the Grade 4 Kayon Mountain lot we carry. In the Ethiopian grading system, higher grades mean fewer defects allowed — Grade 1 and 2 are washed-only categories, which means Grade 3 is the highest grade a natural-process Ethiopian coffee can receive. A well-processed Grade 3 tastes more rustic, more untamed, than a Grade 4. The wildness isn’t a flaw. It’s the point.

“The coffee that comes out of Kercha has to earn its exit. By the time it reaches Addis Ababa, every bean has a story.”

Processing is straightforward in concept, painstaking in execution. Cherries are hand-sorted, then spread in single layers on raised African drying beds. They stay there for three to six weeks — the equatorial sun alternating with afternoon rain, the fruit slowly desiccating around the bean, sugars concentrating, wild yeasts doing whatever wild yeasts do. Workers turn the cherries constantly to prevent mold and ensure even drying. The target moisture is 11.5 percent. The process is thousands of years old and hasn’t fundamentally changed because it doesn’t need to.

In the cup, this is not the polished, strawberry-forward Kayon Mountain natural. This is earthier, darker, more vinous. Blueberry leads — not fresh, but baked into something, like a muffin still warm from the oven. Dark chocolate follows, the intensity of it surprising given the light roast. Then wine — a suggestion of fermentation that’s clean, not funky, the way a natural wine reminds you that grapes are fruit before they’re alcohol. Cinnamon and dried fig on the finish. The body is fuller than Kayon Mountain’s, more syrupy. The acidity is there but it’s muted by the fruit — you notice the brightness after you swallow, not while you’re drinking.

Roast to light-medium. Natural Ethiopians are volatile — the fruit compounds that make them spectacular are the same ones that turn bitter if you push too far into first crack. The window is narrow. Hit it and the blueberry sings. Miss it and you’ve got generic “dark roast” with a whisper of what could have been. Brew on pour-over for clarity — a Chemex if you’re sharing, a V60 if you’re not. French press works too, especially if you want the body and don’t mind sacrificing some of the high-end fruit definition for more chocolate.

Kercha is the third Ethiopian natural we’ve carried — Kayon Mountain from Odo Shakiso, a washed Guji from the classic profile, and now this. They’re three different arguments for why Ethiopian coffee matters. Kayon Mountain is polished and precise. Kercha is wild and wine-like. The washed Guji is tea and jasmine. If someone tells you all Ethiopian coffee tastes the same, they haven’t been paying attention. Or they haven’t been to the end of the road.

We’ve been roasting coffee in Lakewood, Colorado under our neighborhood brand, Village Roaster, since 1979. We buy Kercha naturals because the best coffees we’ve ever tasted have come from places that were hard to reach. That’s not a metaphor. That’s a pattern.