Ethiopia Worka Sakaro (Anaerobic Natural)

The first thing that got us excited about this coffee was just how much was happening in the cup. It’s wildly fruit-forward, syrupy, and sweet, with this huge tropical character that somehow still feels light and almost delicate.

Guava and papaya were the first things we kept coming back to. Then there’s this bright, chewy red-candy sweetness that reminded us weirdly specifically of Twizzlers. Underneath all of that is a softer, wine-like quality—something between fresh fruit, melon, and a really good dry rosé.

And that’s probably our favorite thing about it.

For as loud as the flavors are, the coffee doesn’t feel heavy or overdone. It has this really cool contrast: big fruit, candy sweetness, and a syrupy body, but with the lift and delicacy of a lighter wine. It’s juicy and expressive without turning into a fruit bomb for fruit bomb’s sake.

The anaerobic natural process definitely turns the volume up, but there’s still a lot of clarity here. You can actually pick apart the different fruits, the sweetness, and that wine-like structure instead of everything getting lost in fermentation.

Region / Farm Info

This coffee comes from the Worka Sakaro Washing Station in Gedeb, within Ethiopia’s Gedeo Zone—one of the country’s most celebrated high-elevation coffee-growing areas.

Worka Sakaro works with more than 400 smallholder farmers around the Worka Chelbesa community. Coffee here is grown on steep mountain slopes at roughly 2,000–2,200 meters above sea level, beneath the shade of native trees including Birbira, Corsica Africana, and Ensete Ventricosum. The lot is made up of indigenous Ethiopian heirloom cultivars, including Kumie, Siga, and Wilsho.

What makes this lot especially distinctive is its anaerobic natural processing. After the ripe cherries are sorted and floated, they’re sealed in specialized bags, flushed with carbon dioxide and nitrogen, and fermented for roughly 3–7 days. The fermentation is carefully monitored until the cherries reach the desired pH and color before being moved to raised drying beds.

The cherries then dry slowly on raised beds for around 18–21 days. That combination of extreme elevation, heirloom varieties, and carefully controlled fermentation produces the kind of intensely fruit-forward, highly expressive profile that makes coffees from this part of Ethiopia so special.