Sunday, December 04, 2011

Mugged: Ethiopian Sidamo [Kifu]




What does Mugged mean?


Mugged: Ethiopian Sidamo Korate
Rating: 5+ [see key]
 
 
 
 
If there's anything that warms my heart, it's a microroaster that roasts good beans and gives back to the community. Take Kentucky's Kifu Coffee Roasters, a coffee company created out of a non-profit coffee fundraiser that turned into a for-profit company that gives back to the global community 5% of their profits through various programs such as Cows for Communities.

Recently, Kifu sent me out a few coffees to try and the first I cracked into was their Ethiopian Sidamo Korate Natural, a Kifu-proclaimed "fruit bomb" (i.e a coffee with heavy notes of fruit, usually blueberry or blackberry, showing up strongly in the cup). I tried the coffee out via drip, siphon and french press.

The drip produced a coffee that kicked off with bright blueberry, light chocolate, flemish sour ale, vienna fingers, virgin olive oil and oats amidst a medium body. A bright and nicely faceted coffee.

The french press threw out similar notes of blueberry and flemish ale, but it had more chocolate and olive oil, as well as some notes of wheat, all within a medium body. This infusion was not as bright as the first but it was still good.
The siphon really had the most in terms of chocolate, followed by blueberry, flemish ale, vienna finges, olive oil and oatmeal in a medium body. Also not as bright as the drip but still delicious. 

As fruit bombs go, I can't say that Kifu's Ethiopian was the brightest, but I can say that it was still a fine coffee, having a nice range of flavors in addition to a pleasantly sweet acidity. If you're looking for a bright coffee you can feel good about buying, give Kifu's Ethiopian a slurp. 


note: coffee was provided free of charge and the above review is objective feedback.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kifu coffee is amazing! I live in Canada and order their coffee all the time. I love their business model and there coffee is sooo good.

Anonymous said...

Kifu coffee is so good! I had a pound in my car the other day and thoroughly enjoyed the aroma as I did errands. The great thing about Kifu coffee.....it tastes actually even better than it smells! Kudos to Kifu Coffee Roaster!

Adam said...

Nice review. I enjoy coffee with strong berry flavors, I'll have to give this one a try...

Anonymous said...

Really enjoyed Kifu! Another small roasting works that is putting out some amazing lots that I had for the first time the other day is Azahar Coffee. They are niche Colombian specialists, but do everything the right way.

London Accountant said...

I prefer the siphon version, but then again I am a sucker for chocolate :)