Staff Picks: Four Coffees We’re Loving Right Now

One of the quiet advantages of roasting your own coffee is timing. Coffee, like wine, carries a sense of place — a terroir — and when you control the roast, you also control when a coffee reaches the cup at its peak. That’s the thinking behind everything Bellwether’s coffee team does: sample roast each green coffee, taste it as a group, and build four roast profiles for every origin — light, medium, medium dark, and dark — so that when it lands in the Marketplace, you can roast it to its best expression without doing the dialing-in work yourself.

Recently, head roaster Zoe Gigas and coffee advisors Garrett and Michael got together to taste through four coffees they’re especially excited about right now. Here’s what they picked, what they tasted, and why each one earns a place on your menu.

Ethiopia Limmu Kossa — the elegant everyday washed

Michael’s pick · Washed · Best at light to medium

Michael chose the Ethiopia Limmu Kossa for two reasons: how it tastes, and the story behind it. Bellwether has a long relationship with this farm — green coffee buyer Gabe has traveled to origin, visited the farm, and met the farmers. That kind of provenance matters, and it’s part of what makes a coffee worth putting your name on.

As a washed Ethiopian, it delivers exactly what you’d hope for and a little more. Light sweetness, a tea-like honey quality, and citrus that comes on strong without turning sharp — Michael landed on lemon curd as the best description, and the team kept circling back to a Meyer lemon character: present acidity, but sweet rather than biting. What sets it apart from more delicate washed Ethiopians is body. Where those can sometimes feel thin, this one stays juicy and textured while remaining clean, with a pleasant finish that holds up even as the cup cools.

It shines brightest as a light or medium roast, but it’s genuinely versatile: push it to medium or medium dark and the body and sweetness deepen enough to make it work as espresso. Because it keeps its body, it holds up beautifully in an americano or cold brew — diluted concentrations where thinner coffees tend to disappear. As Garrett put it, this is a coffee that stands up against his favorite washed coffees from South and Central America — high praise from someone who usually leans that direction. An easy, elegant, multiple-cups-in-the-morning coffee that never fatigues the palate.

Nicaragua Los Ocotes — the Central American sleeper

Garrett’s pick · 95% washed / 5% honey · Best at medium

Garrett’s pick comes from Nueva Segovia, in Ocotal, and takes its name from the ocote — a native pine that’s everywhere in the region. What makes it special is that it delivers all the familiar comforts of a Central American coffee while quietly doing something more interesting. Most coffees from the region lean heavily on body and the classic notes of spice, cocoa, and toasted nuts. Los Ocotes has all of that — but it’s also exceptionally clean, with a bright acidity and red juicy fruit notes that most of its neighbors don’t offer.

The processing is part of the story. It’s a blend: 95% of the coffee is washed but undergoes a 36-hour anaerobic fermentation before being de-pulped and dried, while a small 5% minority is honey-processed with zero fermentation — just flesh removed and dried. Blended together, the result is a coffee that reads as classic and familiar at first sip, then reveals warm spice, soft red apple, and a clarity that’s uncommon for the origin. Nicaraguan coffees are often lower-elevation and can come across a little cloudy; the range of elevations and the processing experimentation here make this one stand out.

The team recommends it at medium roast, which highlights the body while keeping the terroir and delicate fruit intact. Zoe’s first thought was holiday blends — the warm nutmeg-and-spice character makes it a perfect spice component heading into the season. It also performs across roast levels: even at light roast, the spice and toasted nut come through. And it’s a fantastic all-day coffee — clean enough to make a pot and finish it yourself, structured enough to pull as espresso in a whole milk drink. As Michael noted, it doesn’t get muddy as it cools; it stays complex right to the last sip. A genuine sleeper: an uncommon origin that surprises people who think they know what Nicaragua tastes like.

Colombia La Candelaria — the natural flavor bomb

Zoe’s pick · Natural · A special-occasion coffee across every roast level

Zoe didn’t hold back on this one — Colombia is arguably her favorite origin, and the La Candelaria is her favorite coffee on the menu right now. It comes from Huila, and it’s a naturally processed blend of four varietals from two farms run by a third-generation coffee family. The cherries are sorted for ripeness, naturally dried for about 36 hours to stabilize the moisture, then finished in a mechanical dryer — a technique that gets an unfair reputation but delivers exactly what you want here: even, consistent drying and cleaner green coffee as a result.

The aroma alone is a whole event. The team described the green coffee as infecting the entire room with a bouquet of fruit — Garrett said he can smell it through the glass walls of the lab when Zoe is cupping in the morning. In the cup, at light roast, it’s a flavor bomb in the best sense: bright acidity, grape soda, grenadine, pomegranate, a cooked-grape fermentation note that edges toward kombucha without ever losing cleanliness. The comparison that stuck was a Jolly Rancher — juicy and beautifully sweet, but never cloying or artificial.

“It’s a complete flavor bomb. It fills the room with the aroma of the coffee itself — a face melter, without being over the top.”

What makes it exceptional isn’t just the intensity — it’s that it still tastes like coffee. Heavily fermented naturals often risk defects and a loss of cup cleanliness; this one stays clean and consistent batch after batch. And unusually, it holds its character even at darker roasts, where most naturals homogenize and turn roasty. The grape stays present; it just expresses differently. This isn’t a slam-a-pot-in-the-morning coffee — it’s a quiet-Saturday, pour-over-ritual, special-reserve-espresso coffee. As Zoe put it, drinking it is like listening to the most interesting conversation in the room. It demands that you sit with it.

Tanzania Usawa Kahawa AA — the East African all-star

Jonathan’s pick · Washed · The all-day house coffee

After the fireworks of the Candelaria, the team landed somewhere more grounded — and, several of them agreed, one of the best coffees on the menu. This washed Tanzania is a women-produced lot, now in its second year on the Marketplace and, in the team’s estimation, getting better every year. Tanzanian coffees tend toward bright, lively acidity balanced by a savory essence, and this one threads that needle beautifully.

East African coffees from Tanzania and Kenya can carry a red-fruited quality some drinkers find challenging; here it’s more subtle, framed by floral expressions, deeper fruit, and a savory note that — for once — makes sense rather than distracts. Savory can be a scary word in coffee, but this is a clean, beautiful savory. During a recent palate-development session, the team cupped it alongside fresh fruit and kept landing on gooseberry — an uncommon note that’s hard to find in other origins — with a darker elderberry edge underneath. Michael reached for an analogy and then abandoned it: it feels like a blend of Ethiopian, Kenyan, and Burundian character, but it’s really entirely its own thing.

Where the Candelaria is a sipper, this is an all-day drinker — the coffee you can brew a full pot of and happily work through by yourself. Jonathan calls it an East African all-star, and recommends it as a batch brew house coffee: the savory note reads like golden raisin rather than anything earthy, and it stays fruity and clean throughout. It’s also remarkably food-friendly — the team’s consensus was that it pairs with coffee cake better than anything they’ve tasted in months, the savory quality accentuating the sweetness alongside it.

The through-line: profiles built to bring out the best.

What connects all four coffees isn’t a flavor — it’s an approach. For each one, the coffee team sample roasts, taste together, and dial in four roast profiles designed to accentuate the best elements of that specific single origin. When you buy the green coffee through Bellwether, those profiles come with it, loaded and ready. You don’t have to be a roaster to get a professional result — but if you want to go deeper, every profile is fully customizable, and the coffee advisors are there to help you build your menu or develop something entirely your own.

All four of these coffees are available in the green coffee Marketplace right now — though, as the team was quick to note, not forever. Marketplace offerings rotate with the harvest and the season, so the window to try any given coffee is real. If one of these sounds like it belongs on your menu, now’s the time.

Quick reference

• Ethiopia Limmu Kossa — Washed. Lemon curd, tea-like honey, floral, clean and juicy. Versatile; best light to medium. An easy everyday cup that holds up in americano and cold brew.
• Nicaragua Los Ocotes — 95% washed (36-hr anaerobic) / 5% honey. Spice, cocoa, toasted nut, red apple, clean body. Best at medium. A sleeper and a great holiday-blend spice component.
• Colombia La Candelaria — Natural, four varietals from Huila. Grape soda, grenadine, pomegranate — a clean flavor bomb that keeps its fruit even at dark roast. A special-occasion sipper.
• Tanzania Usawa Kahawa AA — Washed. Gooseberry, elderberry, floral, clean savory. An all-day house batch brew and an outstanding pairing for coffee cake.