Basha Bekele, White Honey

Basha Bekele, White Honey

White Peach, Juicy Apple, Agave
$32

Country

Ethiopia

Region

Sidama

Variety

Ethiopian Landrace 74158/Walega

Altitude

2,200 MASL

Processing

White Honey

Highlights

There are four ways that a mill can process a coffee bean and still call it a "honey processed coffee", and they're really just a spectrum of intensities. Ranging from most similar to a natural to most similar to a washed coffee we have black honey, red honey, yellow honey, and white honey. Black honey processed beans are fermented and dried with so much mucilage intact that the dried beans come out splotchy and full of fermented sugars and fruity flavor notes, while white honey processed beans come out a ghostly parchement white. The more delicate mucilage fermentation of a white honey creates subtle sweet flavors in the resulting cup, exemplified by this coffee. There is a deep sweetness that nods to the more delicate side of the fresh fruit palette here, ironically reminding us of many fruits with "white" in their name like white grapes and white peaches.

Brewing

Espresso, Pour Over

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Story

This is the second year that we get to feature a coffee from the wonderful Basha Bekele. In 2024 one of our favorite offers of the year was a natural processed coffee from one of his farms. We didn't expect (but weren't surprised) that two of his coffees took the top two spots in Ethiopia's cup of excellence competition that year.

With that pedigree we were amazed that we got to get our hands on another one of his coffees this year, thanks to our good importer friends at Crop to Cup. Enjoy this coffee knowing that you're in good company, and if you see a bag of Basha Bekele's beans out in the world be sure to snag a taste.