Producer: Basha Bekele
Farm: 126 Smallholders
Region: Bensa, Sidama
Altitude: 2,000-2,300 masl
Varietal: 74158
Process: Natural
Roast: Light-Medium
Notes: Peach, Brown Sugar, Walnut

This lot is Crop to Cup's first import from Basha Bekele:

"We visited Basha’s Bombe drying station on our second day in Bensa last December. Basha’s father 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 (primarily 74158, known locally as “Walega”) in semi-forested plots on 12 hectares in addition to operating collection sites in Bombe, Shantawane, and Kokose—collecting cherry from producers growing coffee as high as 2,300 masl.

"While cherry prices were high this year, Basha maintained a practice we didn’t see everywhere: delivering a second payment to the 126 producers he bought cherry from once the coffee sold. Like most smallholders around Bensa, Basha exclusively produces dry processes—which includes experiments with anaerobic styles of fermentation—and floats cherries to remove defects before drying his coffee slowly on raised beds."