There’s Yirgacheffe: the highly prized Ethiopian coffee that coffee connoisseurs rave about for it’s delicate acidity and vibrant florals, and then there’s OCR Yirgacheffe. OCR stands for “Operation Cherry Red” which is the brainchild of Trabocca Coffee Importers.

Trabocca coffee felt that Ethiopian coffee was good, but that with proper motivation it could be truly excellent. So they created an incentive program intended to propel coffee farmers of the region to the upper echelons of the coffee world. The OCR program asks each farm to submit micro-lots of 1,500 to 3,000kg of only their best, ripest, deepest “cherry red” coffee possible.

These coffee cherries are hand-picked, carefully sorted, washed and dried to bring out the best flavours each farmer is capable of. Each of these premium coffee lots are then sent to auction where enthusiastic roasters and drinkers taste and bid up the prices of the choicest lots. In return for their care and dedication to making top-quality coffee the prices fetched are auction are then returned directly to the farmers so that they can improve their quality of life, equipment and motivation to create even better coffee next year.

From the OCR program comes this coffee from Misty Valley. A prime example of what happens when you put an enormous amount of care into your plants: crystal clear fruitiness, complexity, and unique character.

Gently brought into the coffee mill on raised beds, fully ripe coffee cherries are constantly turned by hand both day and night to fully dry over the course of two laborious days. After fully dried, the skin, mucilage and parchment is removed, sorted and sent to market. Lightly roasted, Misty Valley truly delivers.

Perfumed, light and with a lingering strawberry finish, Misty Valley OCR will linger with you all day.