Project 2: Ethiopian Natural – Project Buna

Project Buna is a micro-roaster based out of Virgina. It was started this past summer by two active-duty Navy service members who found the love of coffee while overseas. They started a “coffee buyers club” with other service members and shared their coffee together as a way to build community and try some of the best coffee around (how cool is that!). Each coffee Project Buna roasts is given a project number. I had the opportunity to try Project 1 (Ethiopian Washed), Project 2 (this coffee, an Ethiopian Natural), and Project 3 (Guatemalan Washed).

Project 2 is from the Guji region, which generally has a profile tending toward chocolate-spice rather than their more fruity counterparts from Sidamo and Yirgacheffe. For that reason, I was really surprised with how fruit-forward this coffee was. It has a sweet berry aroma with some incredible blueberry and raspberry flavor notes. It does have a more muted acidity though, which is more common for coffees in this region. It was quite clean, well-balanced and carried with it a nice honey, caramel sweetness. Its aftertaste was fairly quick with just a subtle linger of the blueberry flavor notes. It did lack a bit of complexity, but was flexible and worked well in all of the brew methods I tried.

The Bottom Line

Project 2 was a great naturally processed Ethiopian coffee. It surprised me with its fruit-forward attributes while staying true in other areas to what I expected from this style of coffee from this region in Ethiopia.

Project Buna is just getting started, but I’m excited to see how they grow and the other great coffees they release in the future.