ETHIOPIA BASHA BEKELE NATURAL #1745

Curator's Notes

Blueberry muffins anyone? The new Ethiopia Basha Bekele Natural from Huck Coffee is bursting with notes of blueberry, tropical fruit candy, and a rich, maple syrupy sweetness.

Roaster's Notes

For many of us who work in specialty coffee, Ethiopian naturals were our gateway drug. The best examples are so intensely fruity and complex that after tasting your first, it's hard to think of coffee as just coffee anymore. Natural-processed coffees - dried in the cherry rather than after removing the fruit - are by no means new to us at Huck, and we roast naturals from all over the world. But there's something special about how the fruit-forward processing combines with floral Ethiopian heirloom coffee varieties, so these coffees hold a special place in our hearts. While Basha Bekele is a new name for us here, it’s our second year roasting coffees from this group of farmers in Sidama. Basha Bekele and his family operate a small farm near Shantewene village in Sidama, Ethiopia, and are part of a group organized by Buriso Amaje, another farmer in the area, dedicated to helping individuals sell their fully-processed coffee directly to foreign buyers, rather than selling just-harvested cherry to a cooperative or washing station. While there's nothing inherently wrong with the collective processing method, farmers who do a good job processing their own coffee can keep a bit of added value at the farm. While Basha does primarily work with his own coffee, most farmers who do their own processing also purchase some coffee cherry from their neighbors, and these farmers are often called outgrowers. We're excited to roast up this goodness from Basha Bekele and his neighbors, and are seriously enjoying its intense complexity. We're tasting blueberry, maple syrup, guava, and watermelon in this jammy and delicious natural.