Why We Love This Roast

How about some out-of-this-world (almost literally) Ethiopia!? Keramo is back for the second consecutive year, and we couldn’t be happier about it. Incredibly, this fresh crop comes from 2,360 meters above sea level in the beautiful Bombe Mountains where there is a very slow maturation of the coffee cherries, resulting in small and dense beans packed with flavor.

If you’ve enjoyed our Ethiopia Ardi (Shantawene Washing Station) or Ethiopia Hamasho (Hamasho Washing Station) in the past, you will love this coffee. It comes from a neighboring washing station (Keramo) run by the same exporter, Daye Bensa. The producers who deliver to Hamasho are neighbors with the producers who deliver to Keramo! In the cup, we taste remarkably sweet lemon, limeade, peach, and flowers, with a sparkling quality that almost makes it seem like a soda - Sprite.

How should you brew it? We always find Ethiopians excel in all brewing methods. They tend to produce more fines when you grind them, so if you are doing a pourover, it can be helpful to do a smaller-sized brew and keep the agitation to a minimum (to prevent fines from clogging the filter). But you really can’t go wrong—auto drip, French Press, AeroPress, Clever/Switch, and espresso are all excellent with this coffee!

From Our Importer

Daye Bensa’s Keramo Washing Station is located high up in the Bombe Mountains, in Sidama Bensa, Ethiopia. It is managed by our Ethiopian producer partner, Daye Bensa. The washing station is situated at an altitude of 2.360 m.a.s.l., which benefits the coffee beans with high density and with a heavy concentration of the smaller screen sizes (the majority of the coffee screen sizes at 13-14). This reflects slow maturation at higher altitudes. Around 1,500 producers in this region contribute to the Keramo Washing Station and deliver cherries daily.

This Washed Keramo Lot is traditionally wet fermented for 36 to 72 hours and then dried on African beds with clean plastic mesh and sheet for about 9 to 12 days during high sun to around 10% moisture. The beds are covered to prevent over-drying.

Daye Bensa is a coffee exporting company founded in 2006 by the brothers Asefa and Mulugeta Dukamo. Asefa and Mulugeta started as coffee suppliers in the Sidama area with lots of experience. The younglings of the family, Kenean and Eliyas, later joined the company as Daye Bensa started to grow. Now the company is led by gentlemen like Kenean, schooled in the USA working in commerce and finance, and Eliyas on Quality. This high-spirited family company has supplied us now for the fifth year, and we are still counting!

The company works with various communities of out-growers from whom they receive cherries. Daye Bensa works with multiple washing stations in the Sidama Bensa area. Shantewene, Keramo, and Bombe were among the first.

In 2021, we undertook an expedition to cup multiple new and exciting stations that Daye Bensa has to offer. The Coffee Quest is proud to announce amazing new profiles under the Bensa sun from 2021. In 2020, Daye Bensa won 7th place in the Cup of Excellence with their Assefa Dukamo Natural, grown on Gatta farm and processed in Shantawene station. In 2021, Assefa Dukamo of Daye Bensa participated with a washed Hamasho coffee and reached the 8th rank.

Other certifications held by Daye Bensa are UTZ & RainForest Alliance.