Bensa Kokosa is our second coffee from producer Heleanna Georgalis, a fourth generation coffee professional, whose father, Yiannis, moved from Greece to Ethiopia during WW2 and settled within Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christian community and became a huge player in Ethiopian coffee. Heleanna had studied business in Europe, but when her father passed away, she returned to Ethiopia to retain the family’s ownership of the land and soon embraced coffee production as a career.

Heleanna’s coffee quickly became known for sophisticated farming and processing techniques, as well as a love for experimentation and risk taking. Bensa Koksa is a stellar example of this experimentation, using what Heleanna calls her “Kenya process,” inspired by the “double fermentation” processing developed in Kenya to save water when processing washed coffees. Fermenting the coffee for a total 36 hours in cement tanks before drying, this process results in very clean and fruit forward acidity in the coffee, Kenyan coffee’s signature quality.

Bensa Kokosa then has the best of both worlds in East African coffees: wonderful fruit juiciness reminiscent of grape and lime, as well as well structured floral aromatics.