Ethiopia - Bekele Belacho

Brew Guide:

Best Brewed with: Filter

Lightest Roaster Influence:
Single variety, very dense and well sorted, with a smaller screen size - we're going for an incredibly fast, bright and light roast to make the acidity and florals pop in this deeply sweet natty.

Best rested for: 3-4 weeks

For Filter: We recommend a ratio of 65g/L, 94°C water for more intense berry notes. 60g/L and 97°C, for a more balanced brew. Drop water temps a few degrees if well rested

For Espresso: 18g in, 45g out, 20-22s turbo-style shots are our preference for peak juice.

We're tasting: Some more classic funky berry notes in the aroma, almost overripe strawberry. In the cup, the tarter, brighter notes of bilberry, lemon curd & meringue, as it cools becoming lemon-lime while holding great sweetness. Some violet & lavender notes add a degree of pleasant complexity . Great intensity, and just the right amount of classic natty process character.
Nb. Dry ground fragrance is fully blueberry muffin - what a delight

Traceability:

The Story

When Ethiopia passed legislation in 2017 allowing smallholders with two hectares or more to obtain export licenses, it created a watershed moment for producers like Bekele Belacho. Rather than being limited to selling cherry to local cooperatives, forward-thinking farmers could now process and export their own coffee, capturing more value from their production.

Bekele has emerged as a de facto leader among Bensa's independent smallholder-exporters. Operating two drying stations — in Bombe and Kokose — he not only processes coffee from his own farm but also works with over 100 neighboring smallholders, creating a vital link to specialty markets for his community. His son Beleteno, a recent Hawassa University economics graduate, manages operations at their Hora Ganet farm (meaning "Spring Paradise"), making this truly a multi-generational family operation.

Working with Mecota Trading has been key to making lots like this possible. Founded in 2023 by Moata Raya — who spent 15 years at TechnoServe developing infrastructure for Ethiopian producers — Mecota focuses on creating transparent, traceable routes to market for quality-focused smallholders.

We've always been fans of smaller area separations from Ethiopia — while the larger blended lots from washing stations can show incredibly complex profiles, they're equally made up of diverse excellent smaller lots and pickings that might get washed out in the blend.

A late arrival for the season due to the tragedy that is occurring in the middle east (with the subsequent crisis in Red Sea shipping), but when Dave at Omwani mentioned they'd secured UK import rights for Mecota Trading's lots, we knew something special was coming. After three rounds of blind cuppings, this lot from Bekele's Kokose site stood head and shoulders above the rest.

The 74158 variety found in this lot is a locally adapted selection from the Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC). Like many of JARC's cultivar improvements, it was developed specifically for the unique growing conditions of Ethiopia's southern regions, offering both disease resistance and exceptional cup quality. Bekele's work at the Kokose station represents what's exciting about Ethiopia right now — smallholders taking control of their coffee's journey to market, producing unique, site-specific lots that would historically have disappeared into larger blends and offering a brilliant level of diversity to our favourite origin, the motherland of coffee itself.