Notes: Jasmine, Limeade, Juicy Apricot
Processing: Washed
Elevation: 1,950-2,200 MASL
Varietal: 74110, 74112, Local Landraces
Region: Chelbesa, Gedeb, Ethiopia
Color: Agtron 66 Whole Bean | 103 Ground
About
Freeze Pop is the more refined and classy brother to our Ethiopian natural that we released last week which we called Peach Fuzz. Just like his brother, this coffee was discovered by our legendary coffee hunter, Danny, as he patrolled the remote coffee farms of Ethiopia.
In the cup, it tastes almost exactly like it sounds, icy, bright, and so refreshing you'll want to drink it all summer long.
The farmer, Habtamu Fikadu's and his washing station located in Chelbesa, is one of the most quietly-legendary operations in specialty coffee. The profile in the cup, leads with jasmine, followed by a wave of limeade that lifts everything up, and finished with juicy apricot that lingers sweet and long. It's a classic washed Ethiopian profile taken to another level, vibrant, complex, and clean as a whistle.
More About The Coffee
This coffee comes from Habtamu Fikadu Aga's Chelbesa washing station in the Gedeb woreda of Ethiopia's Gedeo Zone—right next to the famous Yirgacheffe region. His company, Kuri Mountain Coffee, has one of the deeper family stories in modern Ethiopian coffee.
The lineage starts in 1945, when Habtamu's grandfather Aaga Dinsa began growing coffee in Kuri kebele in the western Wollega region. Two generations later, Habtamu is running an export operation that spans five washing stations across Wollega, Guji, Jimma, and Gedeb, working with 144 registered outgrowers across 837 hectares of coffee. Kuri Mountain holds both organic and Fair for Life certifications, the latter meaning $0.12 per pound of exports plus 5% of company profits gets reinvested into the community through food, clothing, schooling, roads, and healthcare infrastructure.
The Chelbesa station itself sits high in the Gedeb hills at elevations between 1,950 and 2,200 meters. Roughly 1,000 smallholder farmers deliver cherry to this station, each tending garden plots of 2 to 3 hectares—that's the classic Ethiopian smallholder model that makes this origin so distinctive. Every bag is a blend of dozens of small farms working alongside each other.
The varietals here are Ethiopia's own JARC selections—74110 and 74112, both developed at the Jimma Agricultural Research Center in 1974 as coffee berry disease-resistant selections from original 'mother trees' found in Ethiopia's shade forests. These landrace varieties are what give Ethiopian coffee its unmistakable character: delicate florals, bright acidity, and layered fruit notes you can't get anywhere else.
For this washed lot, ripe cherries arrive at the station and are floated to remove any defective beans. They're then depulped and moved into concrete tanks for a submerged fermentation lasting 48 to 72 hours—long enough to fully break down the mucilage while preserving the coffee's clean, articulate character. After a thorough wash, the parchment is spread on traditional raised African drying beds and hand-turned constantly for 7-10 days until it hits ideal moisture. It's classic Ethiopian washed processing, done with the kind of care that separates the good stations from the great ones.
Habtamu's coffees have been carried by some of the most respected roasters in North America and Europe and we're honored to bring this one home to Lancaster.
