Ethiopia — Reshad Ababulgu 74110 (White Honey)

Tastes Like — 🍯 Wildflower Honey • 🍎 Baked Apple • 🍊 Mandarin Orange • 🌸 Jasmine

DETAILS

• Producer: Reshad Ababulgu (20 outgrowers)
• Region: Bersoma, Agaro, Limu, Jimma Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia
• Varietal: 74110
• Process: White Honey
• Elevation: 2,050 masl
• Farm Size: 13 hectares

INTRO
Wildflower honey opens the cup and runs the length of it, a light floral sweetness that never turns heavy. Underneath, baked apple is soft and warm, giving the cup weight, while mandarin orange lifts through the middle, sweet and round, and jasmine comes forward in the aroma as it cools. Round and syrupy, with a long finish and sweetness holding from first sip to last. In the cup: wildflower honey, baked apple, mandarin orange, and jasmine.

THE PRODUCER
Reshad Ababulgu farms 13 hectares at 2,050 meters near Bersoma, outside Agaro in Jimma's Oromia zone, where the coffee is graded and sold under the Limu name. The land has been in his family for around sixty years, passing from his grandfather to his father to him, and he replanted it himself with improved varieties in the early 2010s. He works with twenty outgrowers alongside his own trees, and lives less than a kilometer from the farm with his wife and three children, coffee now the whole of the family's income. Farmers around Agaro built the area's reputation delivering cherry to cooperatives like Duromina, whose name the coffee then travelled under — Reshad holds his own export license, which is why this lot carries his name directly.

74110 is a selection the Jimma Agricultural Research Center made in 1974 from wild mother trees near Bishari village in the forests of western Ethiopia, selected for coffee rust resistance in trees that also cupped well. The plants are compact with small cherries, carrying the floral, tea-like character that's kept the selection in the ground across western Ethiopia ever since. At 2,050 meters, cold nights slow the trees down, letting cherries ripen slowly and hold their acidity.

THE PROCESS
White honey sits at the driest end of the honey range, with most of the work done at the pulper: ripe cherries are floated and sorted, then pulped, with almost all the mucilage coming away with the skin, leaving just a thin layer on the parchment. The parchment goes onto raised beds in shallow layers, turned often so the layer dries before fermentation can carry it far — a careful balance, since the remaining sugar holds moisture and an overloaded bed can turn sticky.

Leaving exactly that much sugar on the seed and no more is the whole intention of the method — it's what builds the wildflower honey sweetness and baked apple warmth that define this cup, clear and sweet the whole way down.

THE CUP
Sweet throughout and clear — wildflower honey runs the length of the cup, baked apple gives it weight, mandarin orange lifts through the middle, and jasmine emerges in the aroma as it cools. Round, syrupy texture with a long finish.

Flavour Notes
🍯 Wildflower Honey 🍎 Baked Apple 🍊 Mandarin Orange 🌸 Jasmine