Basha Bekele

Espresso:

• Use 18g of coffee.
• Aim to extract 37 – 39g of liquid.
• Extraction time should be 28 – 32 sec.
• Water temperature: 93 – 94°C.

Filter/Drip/Immersion:

• Start with a ratio of 1:16 (coffee to water).
• Example: If using 20g of coffee, target around 320g of brewed liquid.
• Water temperature: 93 – 94°C.

Pour Over:

• Start with a ratio of 1:16 (coffee to water).
• Adjust coffee amount according to your brewing tool. Example: Using 15g of coffee.
• Bloom: Use 3 times the coffee weight for the bloom. Wait 30-45 seconds. Example: Bloom with 45g of water.
• Pours: After blooming, divide the final brew amount into two pours. Example: Two pours of 97g each.
• Total brew time: Aim for 2:45-3:30 minutes, but focus on taste rather than exact time.
• Water temperature: 93 – 94°C.

Don’t forget to play around with the variables and have fun!

Enjoy

Natural

Cherry is collected, floated, then dried for 18 days in the sun on raised beds (27-30 days under shade for anaerobic and experimental lots)

Community Context

Crop to Cup stopped by Basha’s Bombe drying station on their second day in Bensa in December. Basha’s father—also a community man who with Basha built a church for the community at their site in Bombe—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 2300 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 practices cherry flotation before drying his coffee slowly on raised beds (with some preparations drying under shade). This is our first import from Basha

Sidama

This famous coffee-growing region is celebrated for its rich volcanic soil, high altitudes, and bi-modal rainfall patterns. The combination of regular rains and dry weather allows the coffee to develop slowly and consistently, resulting in exceptional quality.

TBD