Amedae Spice Market on Queen East near Ontario... another place within walking distance.

I bought Yirgacheffe here and I am getting peach and chocolate from this coffee.

The woman who measured out a kilo of greens for me was very kind- and very surprised that I was asking about regions in Ethiopia.

"How do you know?" she asked.

I said I had a jebena too.

She pointed to her selection of jebenas under her counter, a little disbelieving, "One of those?"

Yup.

It's fun to watch facial expressions shift from wary "Are you lost?" to surprised smiles.

Even more fun, I left the store carrying my bag of greens and a fellow and his friend stopped me on the street, surprised and almost speechless- asking if it was coffee I was carrying and where could he get it.

Thanks for this, happycat! I recently picked up a used Fresh Roast and an having fun going through a 1kg bag of Sidamo I picked up at Kullubi. The price and quality are better than what I've gotten from Merchants.

That's awesome, thanks for letting me know!

A freshroast is a great place to start. If you're doing short hot roasts with it, Ethiopians might work quite well because they are hard beans grown at altitude.

Cinema-ras market on Queen near Ontario.

Got some mystery beans there, I knew it was a risk as they didn't know where they were from and they had a brownish hue.

My usual roast profile ran out of energy. I hit them hard with 100% heat to get a decent profile and crack out of them.

Taste was initially all over the place... a little bit of sweet, sour, salty. Then bad. Like sucking on an old burlap bag. I dumped my coffee.

I will pan roast dark and use these for cold brew.

Not recommended.

Criteria for corner store greens

Based on my experiences:

Nice looking store? Irrelevant. Beans from a dark, empty store where the owner crouches in the back can be good.

Nicely bagged greens? Irrelevant. Beans from the bottom of a barrel can be good.

BUT store owner knows the provenance of the beans and proudly states it (and the body language backs it up) EVERYTHING

I am thinking a Yirgacheffe smackdown might be interesting. Desta, Piassa injera, Kullubi, Gerrard St near Carlaw, Amedae.

Of course some or all may come from the same place.