‘Strawberry, melon, honey, floral’

Bekele Belachew is the owner of a 6 hectare coffee farm in the Sagara village in the Bensa district of Sidama. Bekele and his six children and wife do all of the work on the farm, where they compost and add manure and have started pruning their trees. The coffee is grown under the shade of native forest. Bekele and his family grow the 74158 and 74160 varieties which are both selections from the Jimma research centre. These varieties were selected from wild plants in the Metu-Bishari forest in the Illuababora zone in Western Ethiopia. They’re widely distributed varieties across Ethiopia and were selected for their resistance to CBD and high yield. These two selections are known to have very pronounced citrus and floral notes, which are prized by coffee buyers.

All of Bekele’s coffee is picked by himself and his family and then processed and dried at their family home. Like many small producers in Ethiopia, Bekele is still producing only natural coffee, since that is the tradition and they don’t have access to a pulping machine.