What are Ethiopian coffee varieties 74158 and 74110?

Friends who often buy coffee beans will always pay attention to coffee varieties, because coffee varieties are an important factor in flavor composition in addition to producing areas and treatments. In the Ethiopian coffee bean column, the most common is "Heirloom", but recently, Ethiopia began to appear some digital varieties composed of a string of numbers, such as "74158" and "74110", so what are these varieties?

As we all know, Ethiopia is a recognized birthplace of coffee, and the country has thousands of natural coffee varieties, but because of the wide variety, it is difficult to identify and classify, so many coffee beans exported in Ethiopia are collectively referred to as "Heirloom", which will be called "native species" in China.

But in 1970, coffee bean anthracnose (Coffee Berry Disease, referred to as CBD) spread in Ethiopia's major coffee producing areas, the infected coffee fruit will gradually change from turquoise to grayish black, and eventually die on the branches. Generally speaking, coffee trees infected with this disease will directly reduce their production by 20%, and in more serious cases, it will be reduced by 70% and 80%. Therefore, at that time, the disease caused very serious damage and economic losses to the coffee industry in Ethiopia, especially in the important producing areas of Harald and Yirgacheffe in Ethiopia.

Once upon a time, coffee growers tried to use chemical fungicides to prevent these diseases, and although effective, spraying pesticides was a long-term cure rather than a permanent cure, so the Ethiopian coffee organization Jinma Agricultural Research Center (JARC) hopes to directly solve the problem at the source by identifying varieties of highly resistant genes.

In 1973, JARC targeted 19 sites in southwestern Ethiopia for collection. After 2 years, researchers collected 639 seed samples and began scientific and technological identification and planting experiments. Finally, 13 coffee varieties with resistance to CBD, drought tolerance, high yield and good flavor were selected.

After that, JARC collected these improved coffee varieties that were resistant to CBD in the "1974/1975CBD-Rexistent Selections" catalog. Now the common digital varieties such as 74110 and 74158 are included in the catalogue of 13 varieties with resistance to CBD. The first two numbers "74" and "75" represent the year of discovery, and the last three digits represent the number of the experimental sample in that year. "74158", for example, was discovered in 1974.

At present, the most famous and common varieties are 74110, 74158 and 74112. Among them, 74110 and 74112 are mainly planted in Sidamo and Guji areas, showing citrus acidity and light flower aroma, and are dwarf species, small beans, can be mass-produced, so they are widely planted. On the other hand, 74158 is mainly grown in the southwest of Ethiopia, such as Jima and Iru Gbagbo, the overall particle size of coffee is small and neat, round, the flavor shows a soft berry tone, with obvious spice tail.

The fame of these coffee varieties is largely related to major coffee competitions, especially the Ethiopian COE Cup competition in 2020 and 2021, so the winning varieties became popular in the international coffee market overnight and bid at higher prices. with the development of the boutique coffee industry, the coffee market will be very interested in some rare or exclusive coffee varieties, and there are more and more local varieties in Ethiopia. As a result, many farmers began to grow the digital variety of Ethiopia.

In this year's 2024 Ethiopian COE competition, 27 coffee varieties with scores above 87 were selected out of a total of 500 participating coffees. These 27 coffees are all digital varieties, and the top 74158 varieties also sold for a high price of US $445 / lb, which shows that digital varieties are very popular in Ethiopia.

Qianjie Coffee also introduced Santavini 74158 coffee beans from Essidamo, using 96-hour anaerobic sun drying. After brewing, you will smell fermented wine, soft acidity in the mouth, tropical fruit flavor such as pineapple and citrus, mellow and full taste. Huigan has the aroma of red wine.

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