ARBEGONA BORETA, Washed

This beautiful coffee comes from Arbegona, which is one of the thirty districts (or woredas) of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. Situated in the Sidama zone, Arbegona is also the name of the main town here, and the district is bordered by Bona Zuria on the south, Bursa on the southwest, Gorche on the northwest and Bensa on the east.

The cherries were harvested from small plots in the highland area, in a village called Boreta. This village is situated at a staggering altitude of 2,200 masl which firmly places it amongst the highest altitude growing areas in the country, and the coffees from here are categorised as “Highland Coffee”. The area benefits from a sunny climate and is surrounded by lush vegetation and although coffee is the main cash crop in this area, other crops such as sugar cane, false banana, spices and vegetables are also cultivated.

Daye Bensa was founded in 1996 by two coffee producing brothers Asefa Dukamo Korma and Mulugeta Dukamo. They began exporting their high-quality coffees in 2006 and went on to place highly in several Cup of Excellence competitions. Today Asefa acts as the CEO and Mulugeta manages the expansion and construction of washing stations.

74158 was one of the outcomes of the Metu-Bishari selection program carried out by the Jimma Agricultural Research Centre (JARC) in the mid-1970s. The forests around the Bishari village in the Metu woreda were targeted for the selection of CBD-resistant mother trees.

The progenies of this mother tree selection have been widely propagated due to their high yield potential and excellent resistance to CBD.

This process was designed to minimise the danger of off-flavours caused by uncontrolled fermentation during the natural process. The cherries are usually sorted using a floatation tank where any under-ripe or defective fruits will float to the top and can be removed. The remaining cherries are then pulped and left in a tank to ferment until the sticky fruit mucilage is soft enough to be washed off the parchment, which is a paper-like layer surrounding the seed.

The design and cleanliness of the tanks is important, and the degree and speed of fermentation will depend on many variables including how much fruit remains, what bacteria and yeasts are present, whether the tank is filled with water, and the environmental conditions.
Once the mucilage has degraded sufficiently it is washed away using water and the remaining parchment coffee, as it’s commonly called, is dried until it reaches a safe moisture content. The bacteria and sugar-rich water used in the process needs to be treated carefully as it can cause algae blooms if it finds its way into streams and rivers.

In situations where large amounts of coffee is processed in bulk like Ethiopia, it has proven economical for some operations to use a mechanical demucilager, removing all the fruit from the parchment with minimal water, and foregoing the fermentation stage completely. This however, is believed by some to lead to a reduction in cup quality as many pre-cursors for flavour are created through fermentation.