Beshasha - filter coffee from Ethiopia

Our first Ethiopian coffee this year - and an old friend. Mustafa Aba Keno's elegant coffee features notes of peach, sweet lime and milk chocolate, all wrapped up in a floral garb. The coffee is delicate and reminds us of tea. Beshasha is definitely a coffee to marvel at and enjoy.

Beshasha - coffee information

Roasted for: Filter coffee, cold brew and all common filter methods

Origin: Ethiopia, Jimma, Agaro, Beshasha Washing Station

Producer: Mustafa Aba Keno and surrounding families

Varieties: 74110, 74112 & other local unspecified varieties. 100% Arabica

Post-harvest process: pulped, washed

Arrived at the roastery: October 2023

All of our coffees are shipped as whole beans

Tell me more about Mustafa's work

At some point we have to get to know Mustafa Aba Keno personally. The man can certainly tell you a lot - because he has only had an export license since 2018 and can therefore market his coffees directly. Then Falcon Coffee, an English exporter, became aware of him. From then on, both of them work together on improvements every year. From a new pulping system, to a moisture measuring device, to agronomic practice - both sides are interested in constantly improving the coffee. Stories like this are extremely exciting for us. We had his samples on the table for the first time in 2021, and the coffees were still a bit subdued. We bought from him for the first time in 2022 and again this year.

Why does the coffee taste good? the way it tastes?

Unfortunately, we don't know that for sure yet - we haven't had any direct contact with Mustafa so far, but have been communicating through his coffees. This is interesting: Mustafa makes washed, honey-processed coffees, as well as naturals. The Kabira filter coffee was also his. The coffee was natural, but tasted much lighter, almost like a honey-processed one. And now we have a washed coffee that doesn't taste "classically washed" either. It shows a caramel sweetness, the well-known floral notes, but also lime tones. A combination that we rarely encounter with washed coffees from this Jimmas region.

Why did we buy this coffee?

Because for the first time we had the opportunity to get two microlots in different preparations (washed and natural) from the same producer. We bought a few bags of Kabira, Mustafa's Natural. We would like to accompany him on his journey and start a sensory chronicle of his coffees.

How do we roast these coffees?

We roast the coffee as a 12.5kg batch in the 30kg Giesen roaster. With a roasting time of 8:20 minutes, the coffee is one of our "soon-is-the-spice-roasts". With a development time of 45 seconds, we keep this short too. We take the coffee out of the roaster in the middle of the first crack and let it crack in the sieve. We like to roast washed coffees with a slightly shorter development time and a slightly higher final temperature.