Subtext Coffee - Chelbesa Danche Kurume & Wolisho Yellow Honey | Ethiopia
Description
Ethiopia — SNAP & Smallholders of Chelbesa Danche Kurume & Wolisho (Yellow Honey)
Tastes Like — 🍬 Bubblegum • 🍑 Nectarine • 🍒 Cherry
DETAILS
- Producer: SNAP & Smallholders of Chelbesa (~800 producers)
- Station: Chelbesa Danche
- Region: Chelbesa, Gedeb, Gedeo, Ethiopia
- Varietal: Kurume & Wolisho
- Process: Yellow Honey
- Elevation: 2,200 masl
- Harvest: December 2025–January 2026
- Importer: Quest
- Cupping Score: 86.75
- Relationship: 4th year buying from SNAP
INTRO
In January of last year, a trip to Gedeb, Ethiopia included a few days with SNAP Coffee, visiting a number of their stations in the region — Chelbesa Danche among them. This yellow honey lot delivers bubblegum sweetness with nectarine and cherry throughout. In the cup: bubblegum, nectarine, and cherry.
THE PRODUCER
About 800 producers deliver cherry — primarily Kurume and Wolisho varieties — to the Chelbesa Danche station, located in the Chelbesa Kebele. Processing is overseen by Frew, the Special Prep Coordinator and Yirgacheffe Operations Manager, who produces a number of different processes at Danche, this yellow honey lot among them.
Gedeb is one of four coffee-growing woredas in the Gedeo zone, which also includes the famous Yirgacheffe woreda. As in other Ethiopian regions, farm sizes here are very small, planted mostly with JARC varieties. Kurume and Wolisho are JARC (Jimma Agricultural Research Centre) varieties, developed in response to a devastating wave of Coffee Berry Disease in the 1960s and bred for resistance to it.
THE PROCESS
Cherries are de-pulped and left to dry-ferment in tanks for 2 days, then moved to raised beds to dry. The parchment is constantly moved each day, taking 10-14 days depending on weather.
The 2-day dry-ferment ahead of raised-bed drying is the defining step — it's what builds the bubblegum sweetness and nectarine character that define this cup, with cherry rounding things out.
THE CUP
Sweet and fruity — bubblegum sweetness leads, with nectarine and cherry notes throughout.
Flavour Notes
🍬 Bubblegum 🍑 Nectarine 🍒 Cherry
