We’re experiencing: juicy & sweet with notes of honey, cherry & tangerine.

Producer: Basha Bekele

Location: Sidama Bensa Kokose, 2215masl

Genetic Varieties: 74158

Process: Natural

Importing Partner: Crop to Cup

Like most smallholders around Bensa, Basha exclusively produces dry processed coffees—which includes experiments with anaerobic styles of fermentation—and practices cherry flotation before drying his coffee slowly on raised beds. Basha’s father—also a community man who with Basha built a church for the community at their site in Bombe—was once a manager for a co-op in Bombe that supplied coffee to the Sidama Union. Before the government made it possible for smallholders 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 in semi-forested plots on 12 hectares in addition to operating collection sites in Bombe, Shantawane, and Kokose.