Yemenia Alchemy Process Limited Release 003
We have something incredibly special for Limited Release Project 003. There are very few coffees that would be more exclusive than what we have in store. This release is from Yemen, and more importantly, is a Yemenia varietal (more on this later). Yemeni coffee is a minuscule fraction of the global coffee market, and yet some of the best coffee in the world comes from there, our coffee being no exception. An international jury gave this coffee a cupping score of 90.47, by far the highest score Honeybee has carried.
Yemen is likely an unfamiliar country let alone coffee origin for most people, so I figured a short geography and history lesson might be helpful. Yemen, officially The Republic of Yemen, is situated at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It shares borders with Saudi Arabia and Oman, and is flanked by the Red and Arabian Seas. The vast majority of the population is ethnically Arab, and Islam is the official state religion. Yemen has played an integral role in the history of coffee, and we wanted to take this opportunity to explore that role and its significance to modern coffee culture.
Yemen is one of the oldest, if not the oldest coffee cultivating country in the world. The coffee tree itself can be traced back to Ethiopia, but evidence suggests that Yemen is the first country to cultivate the tree and make the coffee drink as early as the 1400s. Supposedly the original coffee brewers were Sufi monks that used the beverage to aid their long prayer and meditation sessions. The coffee tree was eventually more widely cultivated, and the first cafés popped up in Yemen. Over the next few hundred years, coffee became the global beverage it is now, and yet almost none of the coffee bought and sold today comes from Yemen. The historical reasons for the decline of the Yemeni coffee industry would be a big undertaking, but if you’re interested, this would be a good place to start (https://www.qimacoffee.com/yemen).
A lack of infrastructure combined with a dwindling supply makes Yemeni coffee quite rare in modern times. Civil war and political unrest has made Yemen relatively isolated in the past few years, making safe and consistent exporting almost impossible. Evidently, some farmers must go through up to sixty checkpoints between their farm and the port for export. With such a large amount of economic disruption, many farmers have had to convert previous coffee plantations into subsistence farms or Qat farms. The leaves of the Qat plant can be consumed as a stimulant that induces euphoria, and farmers can receive a high price for cultivating it. Water is also incredibly scarce in Yemen, with up to half of the population having no access to clean drinking water. It is difficult for farmers to justify watering their coffee trees in the face of this scarcity. There are, however, a few organizations attempting to revitalize the coffee industry in Yemen, one of them being Qima Coffee (https://www.qimacoffee.com/).
Qima Coffee is whom our particular Yemenia coffee comes through. They have a beautiful and informative website that I would encourage anyone to look over. The lot we purchased a portion of was put up in their 2020 Yemen Coffee Auction. Our friends at Mad Priest Coffee in Chattanooga had the winning bid on this coffee and were kind enough to let us purchase enough for a single roast. We only have 10lbs total of this coffee.
As I mentioned earlier, this coffee is a Yemenia varietal, except “varietal” is likely not the correct classification. Recent genetic testing revealed that Yemenia is actually a mother population of the coffee lineage. This means that Yemenia is a much older and larger branch of the coffee evolutionary tree than a simple varietal. Many people will be familiar with Typica and Bourbon mother populations. Within this population are varietals such as Caturra, Catuai, Pacamara, etc. There is also the Ethiopian Accessions mother population, the home of the Gesha and Java varietals. Yemenia is another of these branches containing a whole host of varietals just waiting to be discovered and classified. This genetic classification is a large part of what Qima Coffee does.
So, what does the Yemenia coffee actually taste like? Stay tuned for that, because we will be releasing a cupping profile later this week. Right now, though, you can preorder the Yemenia here (https://www.honeybeecoffeeco.com/yemenia-alchemy-process-lr003). There will only be 35 tins available of this one-time roast. This is your opportunity to try one of the most unique and delicious coffees in the world, so be sure to sign up before we sell out.
