Ethiopia Moralayo - Natural

Most traditional cold brew recipes are designed for dark roasts steeped for 12 to 24 hours. If you apply that to a delicate, light filter roast like the Moralayo Natural, you often end up with a weak, watery cup or an over-extracted, bitter mess. To unlock the tropical pineapple and floral hibiscus notes, you need to adjust your parameters. Use a tight 1:10 ratio (for example, 50g of coarsely ground coffee to 500g of cold water) and let it steep in the fridge for a concentrated 5 to 10 hours. This shorter, intense steep pulls out the dense fruit sugars and unique creamy texture without extracting heavy, woody defects.

High-altitude Ethiopian heirloom coffees possess brilliant fruit acids, but notes like hibiscus and pineapple can quickly skew unpleasantly sharp or bitter if your extraction stalls. If your total draw-down time drifts past the 2:30 minute mark on a manual pour-over, the water begins pulling out bitter, tannic compounds that mask the sweetness. Keep your kettle water at 94°C to extract the ripe fruit elements early, use a clean medium-coarse grind to prevent your paper filter from clogging, and keep a steady pouring pace to finish right on time for a clean, juice-like cup.