Ethiopia — Layo Teraga Cooperative 74110 (Natural)

Tastes Like — 🍑 Peach Green Tea • 🍬 Apple Candy • 🍊 Cara Cara Orange • 🍬 Cane Sugar

DETAILS

• Producer: Layo Teraga Cooperative (1,841 smallholders)
• Region: Uraga, Guji, Oromia, Ethiopia
• Varietal: 74110
• Process: Natural
• Elevation: 2,250 masl (gardens reach 2,342 masl)

INTRO
Peach green tea opens the cup, soft stone fruit held inside something light and tannic. Apple candy follows, a sweetness concentrated far enough to turn confectionary, giving the cup most of its body. Cara cara orange carries the middle, a round citrus with a pink note sitting under the juice, and cane sugar settles into the finish, plain and clean. Delicate texture, bright from first sip to last — a natural built on tea and citrus. In the cup: peach green tea, apple candy, Cara Cara orange, and cane sugar.

THE PRODUCER
Layo Teraga is a cooperative of 1,841 smallholders in northern Uraga, in the Guji zone of Oromia, founded in 1976 because Guji coffee had no route to the buyers who already knew Gedeo and Sidama — selling for less for decades as a result. Members grow it in gardens around their homes, semi-forested plots reaching 2,342 meters, with this lot picked at 2,250 masl.

74110 is a named selection with a documented origin. The Jimma Agricultural Research Center chose it in 1974 from wild mother trees near Bishari village, in the forests of western Ethiopia, breeding for resistance to coffee rust disease. The trees are compact, carry small cherries, and hold the floral, tea-like character that runs through this cup. At 2,250 meters, in gardens shaded by the trees members left standing, cold nights slow cherry ripening.

THE PROCESS
Members carry ripe cherry to the cooperative's washing station, where it's floated to pull out anything underripe or damaged and sorted by hand. Whole cherry goes onto raised beds in thin layers, high enough off the ground for air to move underneath, turned by hand through the day for even drying and effective heat management. The cherry is covered through the hottest hours and again overnight.

Drying in the cherry keeps the sugars in contact with the seed for the whole process — the defining step that builds the apple candy sweetness and tea-like character behind this cup, with citrus brightness layered on top.

THE CUP
Delicate and bright — peach green tea opens the cup, apple candy sweetness gives it body, Cara Cara orange carries the middle, and cane sugar settles clean into the finish.

Flavour Notes
🍑 Peach Green Tea 🍬 Apple Candy 🍊 Cara Cara Orange 🍬 Cane Sugar