Ethiopian coffees are often associated with floral aromas, bright citrus, and delicate sweetness, and this washed lot from Refisa is a lovely example of why. There’s something special about a coffee that manages to feel both delicate and expressive, with enough acidity to keep things lively, without overwhelming the softer flavours underneath.
Refisa is a washing station in the Nensebo district of Ethiopia’s West Arsi region, where around 550 smallholder farmers bring their coffee cherries for processing. Working with local farmers, the station gives these coffees the care and infrastructure needed to bring out their best, with each lot handled carefully from harvest through drying.
Once the cherries arrive, they ferment in the shade for 45 to 60 hours before being washed to remove the remaining fruit. The beans are then spread across raised drying beds, where they dry slowly over 7 to 10 days. It’s a more traditional approach to processing, but one that allows the coffee’s natural character to shine through, rather than adding the heavier, fruitier notes you might expect from a natural process.
Grown at around 2,150 metres above sea level, this heirloom-variety coffee benefits from the high-altitude conditions of the Ethiopian highlands. The result is a cup that opens with delicate chamomile florals, followed by a bright grapefruit acidity and a soft milk chocolate sweetness. With a lighter body and balanced acidity, it’s a clean, refreshing coffee that rewards a slower sip. A little floral, a little citrusy, and just sweet enough to bring it all together.

Ethiopia Refisa

Natural coffees can go in all sorts of directions. Some lean into big, tropical fruit flavours, while others develop a deeper, sweeter character. This Parainema from Tres Cascadas in Honduras sits somewhere in between, bringing together the juicy sweetness of blueberry, the crispness of apple, and a comforting hazelnut finish. It’s a more understated take on a natural coffee, where the fruit is present without taking over the whole cup.
Grown in the La Paz region of Honduras at around 1,800 metres above sea level, this coffee comes from the Parainema variety. Originally developed in Central America, Parainema is known for its distinctive character and its ability to produce expressive coffees when grown and processed with care. At this altitude, the cherries develop slowly, giving the beans time to build the sweetness and complexity that make this lot interesting.
For this coffee, the cherries are naturally processed, meaning they’re dried with the fruit still surrounding the beans. As the cherries dry, their sugars and fruit compounds contribute to the coffee’s sweetness and flavour. It’s a process that can bring out bold, fruity characteristics, but the result depends on how carefully the coffee is handled throughout drying. Here, the aim is a more balanced cup, allowing the fruit to complement the coffee rather than overpower it.
In the cup, expect crisp apple sweetness, soft blueberry fruitiness, and a rounded hazelnut finish. The apple keeps things fresh, while the blueberry adds a gentle juiciness, balanced by the familiar, nutty sweetness of hazelnut. With a lighter body and gentle acidity, this is an approachable natural that doesn’t need to shout to make an impression. Sweet, smooth, and quietly fruity, it’s a lovely reminder that sometimes the most interesting coffees are the ones that keep things simple.

Honduras Tres Cascadas

Some coffees are fruity, and then there are coffees that feel almost like a dessert. This natural lot from Peñas Blancas in Colombia is firmly in the second camp, bringing together tropical fruit, delicate florals, and a sweetness that reminds us of Turkish delight. It’s expressive without being overwhelming, balancing the richness of ripe mango and passionfruit with a bright mandarin-like acidity that keeps every sip feeling fresh.
Peñas Blancas is a coffee project in Acevedo, Huila, led by Colombian producers Néstor Lasso and Jhoan Vergara. Rather than focusing only on their own production, they’ve built a processing centre that gives surrounding smallholder farmers access to better infrastructure, technical knowledge, and more precise processing methods. The idea is simple: bring together good coffee and careful processing to create something that stands out in the cup.
This lot uses Castillo and Caturra varieties, grown at elevations between 1,600 and 1,900 metres above sea level. It’s naturally processed, meaning the cherries are dried with the fruit still intact around the beans. This allows the coffee to develop a deeper fruit sweetness and a more rounded flavour profile. With careful control of fermentation and drying, that fruitiness can become wonderfully expressive while retaining clarity, rather than turning into the heavier, fermented character sometimes associated with naturals.
The result is a cup bursting with passionfruit and ripe mango, layered with a delicate rose-like floral character. The sweetness is particularly distinctive, bringing to mind Turkish delight, while a lively mandarin acidity cuts through the richness and keeps everything in balance. With a medium body and balanced acidity, this is a coffee that feels both indulgent and refreshing. A little tropical, a little floral, and beautifully sweet — the kind of cup that makes you stop for a moment and wonder how coffee can taste this good.

Colombia Peñas Blancas

This lot from the Incorporate co-op is one of the fruitiest, yet cleanest naturals we’ve had all year. Usually with a natural you can expect deep fruity notes, and maybe chocolatey ferment notes, signs of a deep layered drying bed. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it's more surprising, and more fitting summer, when we find one that's bright, fruity, with no ferment funk at all, a flavour profile we’d describe as being very clean.
The Incorporate co-op is an alliance of farmers and processing companies that helps partner specialty coffee with modern innovative processing techniques, elevating these lots from how they’d be processed independently. 
The co-ops founder, César Diaz, says “We form these alliances because resources or knowledge are often lacking to elevate coffee to the next level. This is where Incorporate steps in, processing specialty coffee with care and dedication.”
This coffee is grown in four farms in the Tolima region, before being selected for processing in the city of Armenia, Colombia. At the processing stage, the coffee cherries are fermented in bags for 72 hours, regularly being turned over to allow the fermentation juices to evenly cover the beans. This process is not unique, but it’s far from standard procedure for a natural lot, and helps develop a lot of this coffee's unique flavours. The usual natural processing stage takes place next, where coffee cherries are slowly dried with natural airflow. If this stage is done quickly, or if the cherries are dried in deep layers, the coffee would ferment and develop funky fruity flavours. For this lot, it is done slow and in thin layers, as the aim is to keep the coffee very clean, since fruity flavours have already been developed in the bag fermentation stage.
The results of this interesting natural process is a coffee bursting with a bright watermelon juiciness, a nice balanced kiwi, goldenberry acidity, and a very clean cup. That clean finish makes it a natural coffee that even a washed coffee aficionado could love, and who doesn’t like that?

Colombia Incorporate

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