MURAGO

Basha Bekele is one of the youngest and most driven coffee producers in the Bensa district of Sidama. Since 2021 he has built a network of high, cool farms across Murago, Kokose, Badagalo, and Gonjobe villages, all on rich nitisol soils between roughly 2350 and 2580 metres, and he runs his own dry mill in Bombe village. In 2024 his coffee won the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence, and in 2025 the Taste of Harvest, both from his own lots in Gonjobe. We have worked with him for three years, since before those wins, and we keep buying across his sites. The careful picking, floating, and slow drying show in cups that are clean, floral, and vividly fruited.

Ethiopian heirloom, sometimes written as mixed heirloom, is not a single named variety at all. It is the term used for the thousands of indigenous landrace types that grow across Ethiopia, the birthplace of Arabica coffee. Many of these plants have never been formally catalogued, and have instead been selected and passed down by farming families over countless generations, each one adapted to the exact hillside and altitude where it grows. This deep genetic diversity is a big part of what makes Ethiopian coffee so distinctive, giving cups that are floral and citric with a delicate tea like quality, bright acidity, and layered fruit that can shift from one village to the next.

74158 is one of the improved varieties developed by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center in Ethiopia, released to give farmers a plant that could shrug off coffee berry disease while still cupping beautifully. The number itself tells the story, as the 74 marks the year it was catalogued, back in 1974. Up in the highlands of Sidama it is often grown and sold under the local landrace name Kurume, tended in the traditional garden system alongside food crops. Growers value it for being dependable in the field and expressive in the cup, giving clean, floral coffees with citrus and sweet berry in both washed and natural styles.

The natural process is the oldest way of preparing coffee, dating back to the earliest days of the crop in Ethiopia and Yemen. The whole cherry is dried intact, with the skin, pulp, and sticky mucilage all left on the bean, so as the fruit slowly dries it feeds its sugars and aromas straight into the seed. Getting it right takes patience and constant attention, as the cherries have to be turned regularly on raised beds over many days to dry evenly and avoid faults. Done well, the natural process gives coffees their heavy body, deep berry and jam fruit, and big, wine like sweetness.