This year we are diversifying our offering by exploring unique, exotic, and super rare
varieties. With this in mind, we bring you Dilla Alghe!

This coffee comes by way of José Padilla in Guatemala and his partnership with Gonzalo
Hernández at the Coffea Diversa project in Costa Rica. Gonzalo himself has amassed possibly the largest private collection of botanical coffee varieties on the planet, all with full genetic traceability. After years of collecting and transporting samples from across the world, Gonzalo began a new project by seeding these rare and unique varieties and sharing them with his friends: one of those friends was José Padilla.

This particular variety comes from a wild Ethiopian Heirloom found close to the
southwestern Ethiopian town of Dilla Alghe. The trees are quite tall with wide spacing
between the branches and the leaves and leaf-tips of the adolescent trees are reddish in
colour. Interestingly, the story of the sampling of Dilla Alghe is quite similar to the story of the original Geisha sampling, except 20 years prior: British researchers were looking for new genetic material to make coffee crops more resilient to leaf rust and disease.

The variety itself is quite diverse and has several ‘lines’ which are categorized by a number denomination, so even when identified as Dilla Alghe, different samples are usually quite different in cup quality.

We were very impressed by the cup profile and quality of this Dilla Alghe and it has very
quickly become one of our favourite varieties.

Expect notes of Darjeeling tea, violet, and candy apple.