Bombe, Ethiopia Obadiah Coffee Review

Based in Edinburgh, Obadiah Coffee has been on my mental list of roasters to try for a while. Their packaging is minimal, using simple pale colour palettes, and the company recently announced a rum aged coffee which caught my attention. I recently opted to purchase their Bombe, Ethiopia coffee. The tasting notes featured blueberry and caramel, two flavours I thought I'd enjoy.

I was excited when this coffee arrived. The box comes in a pale pink and contains information about the coffee on all sides. The box recommended that I leave the coffee to rest for seven days, advice I followed because I still had to finish my Cojones from The Good Coffee Cartel. This is the first time I've seen a coffee whose box recommends resting for a certain period of time.

The dry whole beans and grounds have a strong caramel and chocolate fragrance. When I was brewing the coffee, fruity notes started to emerge. These aromas hinted at what I could expect in the final cup of coffee. The brewed coffee smelled fruity with notes of blueberry and raspberry. I got a few hints of caramel. There were times during both brewing and smelling the aroma where the coffee reminded me of a Lotus biscuit, commonly served with coffee.

My first sip of this coffee hit me with a strong blueberry flavour and a hint of raspberry. I like fruity coffees so I was confident I'd like this one. The body is quite light and the coffee has a delicate sweetness; not so little as to be dull but not as much as other fruity coffees I have tried. As the cup progressed, these berry flavours remained prominent.

In the middle of drinking the coffee, the chocolate and caramel notes became clearer. The coffee tasted more sweet at this stage. I was again reminded of Lotus biscuits. The caramel was more dominant than the chocolate flavour although I could still taste some chocolate. The chocolate was more like milk chocolate than dark.

This coffee has a soft, tangy acidity that is not as powerful as many of the fruity coffees I have had before. Toward the end of the cup, the fruit flavours became clear again, with the caramel receding to become less prominent. My last sips of this coffee were fruity and delicious, with hints of chocolate.

What struck me about this coffee is that I have never heard of the varietals listed on the Obadiah website. After doing some digging, it appears many of the varietals, such as 74/110, are common in Ethiopia. I've tried about a dozen coffees this year and I am still discovering new varietals. Indeed, there are said to be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of varietals of coffee in Ethiopia alone.

The Obadiah coffee packaging is recyclable, according to the box. The box is made entirely of recycled coffee cups. Obadiah states that over 2.5 billion coffee cups are thrown out each year in the UK alone, most of which are not recycled. I have not yet had a coffee whose box has focused so much on its origins. I like how thoughtful Obadiah have been about the provenance of their packaging.

About This Coffee

Process: Washed

Price: £11.00 (200g)

Varietal: Setami, Mikicho, 72/158, 74/110

Tastes: Blueberry, chocolate, caramel, raspberry