74158 - Anaerobic Natural - Basha Bekele, Kokose

Origin

• 🇪🇹 Ethiopia· Sidama

Tasting notes

Character

• Experimental
  50
• Funky
  40

Tastes Like: Cantaloupe, Passionfruit, Blueberries Origin: Sidama, Bensa, Bombe, Ethiopia VarietyVariety (cultivar)The botanical subtype of the coffee plant — Gesha, Bourbon, SL28 — analogous to grape varieties in wine. A major driver of cup character alongside origin and process.: 74158 Producer: Basha Bekele Elevation: 2,250 masl Process: NaturalNatural processThe whole cherry is dried with the fruit still on the seed. Gives heavier body and big fruit flavors — think berries and wine — sometimes with a fermenty edge. Before the government made it possible for smallholdersSmallholderA farmer growing coffee on a small family plot — often under two hectares. Most of the world's coffee is grown this way, typically pooled at cooperatives or washing stations. to obtain export licenses, both he and his father sold their cherry to the cooperative. Basha now has his own export license and grows coffee (primarily 74158, known locally as “Walega”) in semi-forested plots on 12 hectares in addition to operating collection sites in Bombe, Shantawane, and Kokose—collecting cherry from producers growing coffee as high as 2300 masl. While cherry prices were high this year, Basha maintained a practice we didn’t see everywhere: delivering a second payment to the 126 producers he bought cherry from once the coffee sold. Like most smallholders around Bensa, Basha exclusively produces dry processes—which includes experiments with anaerobicAnaerobic fermentationCherries or depulped seeds ferment in sealed, oxygen-free tanks. Produces intense, unusual flavors — cinnamon, bubblegum, boozy fruit — that divide opinion. styles of fermentation—and practices cherry flotation before drying his coffee slowly on raised beds (with some preparations drying under shade). This is our second import from Basha.