Yemen Mokka Pearl of Tehana

Yemen coffees are wild and amazing, rich, hoppy, chocolatey cups that keep you going back for more and more. The bean sizes range from tiny to large, there are broken beans, there are defects in here -- but that's every Yemen lot of coffee there is. And Yemen coffee is amazing.

In general, Yemeni coffee beans are very small, but since they are not sorted by size, there are also large beans mixed in. The coffee produces large amounts of chaff. Expect undertones of baked bread, popcorn, bitter herbs, butterscotch, and spice — a dark sultry spiciness that pairs well with chocolate and desserts. Air roasters will be fine. Some drum roasters will struggle.

It's a natural-process coffee and I roast it light -- not too far out of the 1st cracks (407 degree bean temperature). This is where you pick up the hoppy malty tastes of bread and butterscotch. There is some tart fruit in the background - it's a complex coffee. If you take it just into the rolling 2nd cracks, which tends to happen about 20 seconds into the slow second cracks, you have a rich cocoa-tasting espresso. a great half for your Mokka-Java blend, or a wild cup of coffee to drink as is.  If you want less bitterness and more snappy acidity, pull it out after just a few snaps of the 2nd cracks, and its an exotic complex cup that emphasizes more of the sweeter tones and less of the bitter ones.

Yemen is a natural process coffee which means it roasts fast and needs less flame. It is the mokka varietal which is very hard to grow and only naturally grows in Yemen and Ethiopia. I'm not claiming that Yemen is worth its price, but Yemen coffee is extremely dangerous to export, expensive to get through customs, and very rare. There is no other coffee in the world that tastes like Yemen, and so you just have to pay the price if you love the taste (which I do). It does NOT support terrorism. It supports the small farmers who are trying to make an honest living and need support.

USA arrival August 2022