Mdou Moctar - Ilana (The Creator)
How fortuitous it turned out to be that I stumbled upon Mdou Moctar’s prior, super-chill masterpiece, Sousoume Tamachek, while doing some late night coffee shop bookkeeping. I could not help but share it with anyone who would listen. Even more adventitious was finding out that he was about to release a new album just a few weeks later. That album was in fact this ripper that you hold in your hands right now. And surely the most serendipitous cherry on top of this whole story was that Mdou Moctar and his amazing band came all the way from Niger to play for the fine folks of Portland, ME last week at SPACE. It was all too much. We had no choice but to share this record with you, our delightful club members.
Shoondhisa - Guji, Ethiopia
Boy oh boy, fresh naturals are BACK! This lot is from the Dambi Uddo washing station in Guji. The coffee is a selection from 72 small producers who grow coffee in the nearby hamlet of Shoondhisa. The producers grow coffee of the 74110 and 74112 varieties, also referred to Gibirinna and Serto, respectively, on farms of about 2.5 ha each. We are jazzed to be starting off our natural Ethiopia season with this coffee. It was super complex, clean, and mind-blowingly delicious, with notes of juicy raspberry, mouth-watering lemonade, and delicate elderflower.