EST. 2019 · PICKERING, ON · MONDAY JUN 01 2026 · VOL. VII · NO. 152


Mornings.



Worka Sakaro,
Yirgacheffe.

Process
washed
Roast
light
Producer
Worka Sakaro Cooperative
250 g
$22.00

Worka Sakaro is the kind of coffee that earns the floral reputation washed Ethiopias once had and lost. Picked at the very top of a 2,100m ridge, fermented under shade, dried slow on raised beds. Brewed right, it tastes the way good loose-leaf tea smells.

The Worka Sakaro Cooperative sits high in the Gedeo zone, where every smallholder is a co-op member and every cherry passes through one washing station before it gets a name on a sack. The station was built in 2007 and operates the way it did then. Sorting tables, depulpers from the seventies, raised beds the length of two basketball courts.

Pilot Coffee, the Toronto roaster we buy from, has gone back to this exact lot four years running. The flavour profile is so consistent it almost feels engineered, except that it is, in fact, just one altitude, one varietal, and one steady set of hands at the wet mill.

We brew this one as a pour-over and ignore the espresso machine entirely. It rewards patience: a 1:16 ratio, water just off the boil, a forty-five-second bloom. If you take milk in your coffee, this is not the morning to start.

Bergamot peel, jasmine, raw cane sugar.

White peach, green apple, a quiet floral midsection. Cleaner than most washed Yirgs.

Citric brightness, lingering tea-like dryness.

Worka Sakaro, Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia

A note from the bar.

We grind to order at the bar. If you take a bag home, ask Joel for the matching V60 paper. He throws those in.


Almond cake. Or nothing.


Two methods we recommend.

  1. Pour-over (V60)


    18g coffee, 290g water, 96C. 45-second bloom, three slow pours every 30 seconds. Total brew time 3:00.

  2. Chemex


    30g coffee, 480g water, 96C. Bloom for one minute. Pour in concentric circles every 45 seconds. Total brew time 4:30.