I definitely screwed up by not buying into Sweet Maria's Ethiopia DP Sidama Aleta Wondo. I decided, after making quite a few buying mistakes plus too much inventory to only buy a pound of the Wondo. I roasted it the day I received it and when I went back for 10 pounds it was gone.

Here is Tom's review of Wondo.
http://www.sweetmarias.com/coffee.archi ... y=Ethiopia

I did a Google search and found some at Kifu Roasters. (http://www.kifubeans.com/)

I ordered some Wondo from Kifu and it was roasted perfectly. Tom's review pretty much nailed my experience with both what I roasted and what I bought from Kifu. It makes an absolutely delicious pour over and is bold enough to carry through in a milk-based drink.

I don't know how much longer Kifu's inventory will hold on this Wondo but if you want to try something extraordinary this is a fantastic drink.

Jeremy Spainhour, roaster and owner of Kifu, obviously knows what he's doing with selecting beans and roasting. His commitment to the trade is impressive.

Bob

+1 for the Wondo...but that's 2x SM's price.

But it's roasted! I thought his priced for a pound of roasted was fair compared to other commercial roasters. Also, that includes the 15-18% shrinkage which the roaster of the greens has to absorb.

l tried the Wondo for the first time a couple of days ago. Prepared a double using the Legend and was floored. For me the taste was a syrupy apricot/orange flavor with a very clean finish. By far the most unique tasting espresso I have ever had. If you want to experience a truly uncommon flavor in your cup, give it a try. I am anxious to prepare it as a drip this weekend. Jeremy from Kifu roasters is a class act. My coffee was to arrive on Friday/Saturday by USPS. When it did not show on Saturday I emailed Jeremy to be sure he had the correct address. He told me he would send another 2 bags plus an additional one for the inconvenience first thing Monday. Jeremy never even botherd to wait to see if the shipment would show up Monday. Well the original shipment did arrive Monday. And the next one arrived on Wednesday. Jeremy told me to keep the second one at no charge. How many vendors that you have purchased from through the internet would have handled the situation the same? I am very impressed with the Wondo, and even more impressed with Jeremy's customer service.

The mission statement of these folks is impressive. They started as a non-profit. Here's the link: http://www.kifubeans.com/kifuabout.html

Yep, good beans and very nice roasting from Jeremy's Ki-Fu (sounds like Kung-Fu move)

Nik wrote:But it's roasted!

Yeah, I could have absorbed the price delta if they were still green...

The Aleta Wondo was discussed earlier in Home Roasting:

Greens Alert

With these beans you can get different flavors depending on the roasting style.

Cheers

mborkow wrote:Yeah, I could have absorbed the price delta if they were still green...

Hi Everyone,

This is Jeremy, roaster and owner of Kifu Coffee Roasters. I'm glad that those of you who ordered the Wondo are enjoying my interpretation of it. I just pulled a shot of the Wondo this morning and agree that it is quite a phenomenal/wild SO espresso! I was bummed that SM ran out, but Tom said that they'd be getting in more DP Ethiopians by mid to late March. Hopefully I'll have enough of the Wondo to last me until then!

@mborkow, and anyone else who may be interested, if you ever want to order any of my coffees green, just contact me through the site or email me and let me know what you are looking for and how much. It will have to be taken on a case by case basis. We keep a relatively low amount of each coffee, because (1) we're a small operation, and (2) we want to always keep our inventory as fresh as possible. So availability and discount will have to be weighed against those factors.

Regarding the comments about pricing, as with any micro-roaster, the majority of our work goes into sourcing coffees (i.e., researching coffees, obsessing over importers' offering lists, speaking with importers, interacting with members on coffee roasting forums (mainly GCBC), ordering samples, roasting samples, cupping/scoring samples, placing orders, picking up my freight at the local hub, hauling it (150 lb. bags) to my roasting office), bagging coffees, handling orders/inventory, and shipping out products. This is the actual labor of a roaster. Roasting is the fun part! And the potential of any roaster begins with the quality of his green! So this, too, must be considered in determining the cost of green coffees. I hope that makes sense!

Thanks again for all the feedback! Let me know if I can answer any of your questions

Jeremy Spainhour
http://www.KifuBeans.com
Roaster@KifuBeans.com

^Pretty cool^ Look forward to trying some.