The Harar Horse we have all been waiting for is in!   This is the
cherry picked lot that Tom had prepared special for Sweet Marias!
With a name like Ethiopian Harar Horse -Green Stripe it must be good.
My 10 pound order is in!  Tom said in his write-up, "Still, there are
moments where the Green Stripe seems to rank right up there: I blended
a  Full City batch I did, with a lighter City/City+ batch, and had one
of the best Sunday morning brewed coffees I can remember!"
So much for stash reduction.  Only Tom would post 4 great new
offerings on a Thursday night.  I guess he likes working hard on
Fridays!  So mousy on over to the SM site but hold on to the wallet,
you will be tempted.
Les

Wow Les, we are going to have to put you on the payroll! Anyway, 
please read the review because this IS the best Harar until 2007 
(meaning next February) but it doesn't always deliver in terms of the 
cup. I like a spicy, tobaccoy, herby Harar, but I really like the 
fruits: I just don't get it consistently with our special lot. On the 
other hand, I have roasted more samples of this than I can count, 
trying to figure it out, and – sometimes yielded fantastic cups, as 
Le references from the review. Maybe this is part of the actual 
allure of Harar: a rollercoaster, flashes of brilliance, then the 
next brew will be "nice" but lack that grace note. I don't know.
On that subject, I have been trying to endorse the Dry-Processed 
Yirgacheffe, which cups like a really really good DP Sidamo. Also, we 
have a special prep. lot of Dry Processed Yirg. coming, which 
promises to be VERY different, very clean prep, the pre-ship samples 
have been enticing!
Also .... we have gone to some great lengths to get Yemeni coffees 
from a new source that can offer Ismaili, since the Yemen Mocha 
Coffee Trade source dried up (part of the issue is that the whole 
Yemen crop is very small). We have Ismaili, a Mattari and a Sana'ani 
on the water, and of the 3 the knock-your-sox-off pre-ship sample was 
actually the wildly fruited Sana'ani. Anyway, those are about 3 weeks 
away from arrival.
Lastly, I in fact DO have a Panama coming, like now. And it is really 
good, once again (broken record) a special project I initiated in 
January in Panama: to get all the Peaberry from the Lerida Estate. 
Basically, most of the really good Lerida is bought up by Japan on an 
extended contract now, but I found while at the mill they were 
extracting the peaberry! Silly Japanese :-) I made an offer there for 
it, and that arrived yesterday - need a day to evaluate and post it 
but I am enjoying a very floral, very citric, very lively demitasse 
of it right now. So keep that in mind if you are considering an 
order. Also, the Green Stripe Harar should be around a while, at 
least 1 month, so don't feel like you are going to miss out if you 
don't get an order in.
I also have another DP Sidamo bought that had one of the best 
Ethiopia Dry-Process cups I ever had with the type sample, but the 
shipper really messed the whole thing up, and the delay was over 6 
months. Not that it was in a container: I think the guy didn't really 
own the coffee he was offering to sell. Anyway, it arrives next week, 
and it could go either way: great or lousy. If it is not phenomenal, 
I am going to reject it.
Tom
<Snip>
--
                   "Great coffee comes from tiny roasters"
            Sweet Maria's Home Coffee Roasting  -  Tom & Maria
                      http://www.sweetmarias.com                Thompson Owen george_at_sweetmarias.com
     Sweet Maria's Coffee - 1115 21st Street, Oakland, CA 94607 - USA
             phone/fax: 888 876 5917 - tom_at_sweetmarias.com