About this Coffee
Tatmara is one of the most beautiful coffee plantations I have ever been to. The coffee grows inside a native forest full of old native trees, spice plants, shrubs and wildlife. Negussie does not apply any mineral fertilisers or agrochemicals to his farm and weed control is done manually. Still the trees are healthy and producing well which is most likely due to the healthy forest soils that are rich in soil biology that provide the trees with nutrients. I personally believe that these coffees are so complex, full of flavour and easy to extract not only because of the cultivar that are grown but because they grow slowly under shade trees in very healthy soils in their native environment. (After all the arabica coffee trees are native to the forests of Kaffa. )
Of course the natural process also contributes with extra fruity flavours and as you may know I am normally not the biggest fan of natural processed coffees. This is because they are really difficult to produce well, especially in regions that have rain showers during the harvest.
I often find that natural processed coffees have overpowering «funky» flavours of fermented fruit due to uncontrolled fermentation during drying. However, I do like very clean and precise natural processed coffees and when done well with the right cultivars they can taste very juicy and fruity in a refreshing way. The coffees from Tatmara is a good example of a natural processed coffee that I really like. Negussie has been trained by the Belco team on how to process and dry the coffees and the results is a really clean and tasty natural processed coffee with ripe flavours of tropical fruits and strawberries.
The coffees from the 2022/23 harvest have a much more subtle “natural processed” flavour profile than the previous harvests we have bought. I find them to be a bit more elegant but still with plenty of fruitiness in the cup.