What the Yirgacheffe Lot 47 Harvest Taught Us About Terroir

A single farm in Gedeo Zone rewriting how Melbourne roasters think about altitude, fermentation, and the meaning of place.

I tasted Lot 47 at Assembly on Therry Street in July, brewed at ninety-three degrees through a flat-bottom dripper. The fragrance alone — jasmine, bergamot, stonefruit — was unlike any Yirgacheffe I had encountered that season. The hand-written label read altitude 2,140 metres, producer Tesfaye Bekele, washing station Koru.

Altitude Is Not the Whole Story

Quality is not altitude alone — the forty-eight hour submerged cherry fermentation at Koru station gives Lot 47 its unusual clarity and depth. At The Refinery in North Melbourne, head roaster James Callaghan ran three batches on a twenty-two-kilo drum roaster before settling on a light profile that peaked at two hundred and four degrees.

“The best lots arrive without explanation. You taste them and something doesn’t match your model. That’s when you know to pay attention.”

— James Callaghan, head roaster, The Refinery