Of all the coffee producing countries, Ethiopia is perhaps the most famous and compelling. The fascination with Ethiopian coffee comes not only from the unusual, astonishing coffee it produces, but perhaps, also from the mystery that shrouds so much of it. The explosively floral and fruity coffees from Ethiopia have opened many a coffee lover’s eyes to the amazing diversity of flavor that coffee can have. Ethiopia is considered by many to be the birthplace of coffee. Harvesting coffee cherries from the wild Arabica Ethiopian heirloom coffee plants for export first began around the 16th century. Today variations of these plants are grown in many countries around the world. But even today, centuries later, it is still very difficult to find better tasting coffees than the Ethiopian heirloom coffees. These Ethiopian coffees are hand-picked and then milled and processed in 2 very distinctively different ways. 1) The original centuries old practice is Natural Processing. This consists of picking the ripe coffee cherries and letting them dry naturally in the sunshine on raised beds with the coffee seeds (beans) still inside the cherry. Once the cherries have dried they are run through the mill which separates the coffee seeds out of the parchment. This method creates a very fruity and floral cup with usually a much softer milder acidity. 2) The newer Washed Processing consists of picking ripe cherries and then running them through the mill and pulping the coffee seeds out of the coffee cherries. They go then to the wash tanks where the remaining cherry mucilage is washed off the coffee seeds. The seeds are then placed on the drying beds and sun dried to about 11% moisture. This washed method results in cup that is much brighter and cleaner tasting than a natural processed coffee. This brighter cleaner taste comes from a higher acidity in the beans. So in review – the natural process produces more berry/fruity notes – and the washed process produces a brighter cleaner cup.