E75 Ethiopia Guji Hambella Wate Kurume Honey G1 | 2026 TOH Champion Lot
Guji Hambella Wate Kurume Honey
The same lot that took first place in the honey category at the 2026 AFCA Taste of Harvest. Grown between 2250 and 2400 metres, pure Kurume heirloom. Retained mucilage gives a full peach, lychee and strawberry sweetness, held in check by bergamot and lemon peel, finishing on gardenia with a silky body.
Tasting Notes
First Out of 37 Honey Entries
Taste of Harvest is the African Fine Coffees Association's flagship quality competition and Africa's longest-standing coffee contest — the continent's closest equivalent to the Cup of Excellence. The 2026 edition ran in Addis Ababa in February, with 226 Ethiopian samples entered across natural, washed, honey and experimental categories. Thirty-seven of those were honey, and this Wate lot won that category. What we've brought in is that same lot.
Why Honey Is Rare in Ethiopia
Almost all Ethiopian coffee is washed or natural; honey processing is a small minority. Of the 226 samples at the 2026 competition, only 37 were honey — under one in six. The reason is practical: honey processing means drying the bean with its mucilage still attached, and humidity and turning have to be controlled tightly or the lot over-ferments or moulds.
Done well, the payoff is a third path between washed and natural: the cleanliness and floral clarity of a washed coffee, with the fuller fruit sweetness and weight that the mucilage contributes. That's exactly where this coffee sits — if washed feels too lean to you and natural too loud, honey is usually the answer in between.
Wate and Kurume
Wate was founded in 2019 by the Chirissa family to process coffee from the high mountains of West Guji. This lot grew between 2250 and 2400 metres — an altitude at which, in practice, only Kurume thrives well enough to produce quality cherry.
Kurume differs from the common 74110 and 74112: those are disease-resistant selections bred by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center in the 1970s, while Kurume is an indigenous landrace. Its beans are small and hard and yields are low, but among Ethiopian heirlooms it stands out for aromatic intensity and sweetness. At this altitude cherries ripen slowly and are picked around a month later than surrounding regions.
Details
| Code | E75 |
| Country | Ethiopia |
| Region | Guji · Hambella |
| Station | Wate |
| Altitude | 2250 to 2400 m |
| Varietal | Kurume (indigenous landrace) |
| Process | Honey |
| Grade | G1 |
| Competition | Same lot as 2026 TOH Ethiopia Honey champion |
| Roast | Light |
| Net Weight | 200g |
A Starting Point
Pour over: 1 to 15 ratio, water at 91 to 93°C, medium-fine grind. Honey-processed coffee carries more sweetness to begin with, so running slightly cooler than you would for the washed version keeps it from going cloying and preserves the bergamot and lemon peel.
Kurume beans are small and dense, so a touch coarser than your usual Ethiopian grind often balances better. Browse our brewing gear if you need anything.
