JARC 74112

JARC 74112 is an Ethiopian coffee plant that goes by a filing number. It was catalogued and propagated by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center — JARC, the government coffee research station in southwestern Ethiopia — and it is one of the handful of numbered selections that Ethiopian farmers now win competitions with.

It is not a farm, an estate or a producer. If a bag says “74112”, that is the plant, not the place.

Its better-known sibling is JARC 74158, which has won Ethiopia’s national Cup of Excellence outright twice and holds the highest auction price the competition has ever recorded. 74112 has never won. What it has instead is depth: in the three Ethiopian competitions checked for this note, 74112 lots appear again and again through the published tables, more often than any variety except 74158 and its other sibling 74110.

That matters because of what Ethiopian coffee usually says on the bag: “heirloom.” That word is not a variety — it is an admission that the lot is a mix of local types nobody has identified. A bag that says 74112 is claiming something much stronger: one known, catalogued, deliberately propagated plant, kept separate from tree to sack. See Sidama for why that separation is the whole game in Ethiopia.

The competition record

This is the firm part. Ethiopia’s Cup of Excellence results are published by the Alliance for Coffee Excellence, and the tables below were read directly off the official pages.

2022 — nine lots in the published table, including the runner-up.¹

	Rank	Producer	Region	Score	Process	Price
1	2	Kenean Assefa Dukem	Sidama	90.25	Anaerobic	$189.10/lb
2	10	Nare Ware Chinba	Sidama	88.78	Natural	$20.21/lb
3	11	Aman Gemeda Galcho	Oromiya	88.44	Natural	$17.10/lb
4	13	Abiyot Shonto Gelgele	SNNPR	88.42	Natural	$15.00/lb
5	16	Butu Galcha Bora	SNNPR	88.22	Natural	$21.00/lb
6	21	Desalegn Abebe Adela	Oromiya	88.06	Natural	$11.00/lb
7	24	Fuad Feku Jibril	Oromiya	87.92	Natural	$15.10/lb
8	25	Tadesse Teko Teero	SNNPR	87.86	Natural	$21.20/lb
9	28	Aberash Tabato Utala	SNNPR	87.28	Natural	$9.00/lb

The rank-2 lot is the high-water mark. It sold 363.8 lb at $189.10 a pound — a weight that works out to almost exactly 165 kg, the same figure Ethiopian press reporting gives for the same sale, which also says the producer earned over three million birr from it.¹ The corroboration is recorded in more detail on Bensa.

Look at the rest of that year’s table and the picture sharpens. In 2022 the published top eight of Ethiopia’s national competition was entirely numbered JARC material: 74158 at ranks 1a, 1b, 4, 5 and 8; 74112 at rank 2; 74110 at 3a, 3b and 7; 74165 at 6.¹ A country holding the deepest coffee gene pool on earth won its own competition with 1970s research-station selections.

2021 — ten ranked lots plus two National Winners.²

	Rank	Producer	Region	Score	Process
1	2a	Dawencho G/H/D Bunna Amrach	Sidama, Arbegona	90.50	Natural
2	4	Nare Ware Chimba	Sidama, Bona Zuria	90.20	Natural
3	6	Mulugeta Muntasha Bale	Sidama, Arbe Guna, Arbegona	89.60	Natural
4	9	Rumudamo Ye Eshet Bunna Mefelfeya PLC	Sidama, Arbegona	88.47	Natural
5	12	Aliyie Gobena Hessa	Oromia, West Arsi, Nensebo	88.38	Natural
6	14	AASH Coffee Pulping PLC	Oromia, West Arsi, Nensebo	88.32	Natural
7	16	Thewodros Nigusse Gemeda	Sidama, Bura	88.18	Natural
8	19	Birhanu Dido Awacho	SNNPR, Gedeo, Gedeb	88.06	Natural
9	23	Semira Negash Kedir	SNNPR, Gedeo, Yirgacheffee	87.59	Natural
10	25	Nigussie Gemeda Mude	Sidama, Bura	87.56	Natural

Two of that year’s National Winners were also 74112: Abdurahman HajiKabato Sadin (Oromia, West Arsi, Nensebo, 87.21, natural) and Feysel Abdosh Coffee Supplier (same district, 86.41, natural).²

2024 — four ranked lots.³

	Rank	Producer	Region	Score	Process	Price
1	6	Mitiku Kawiso Nuna	Sidama	89.33	Natural	$40.10/lb
2	9	Etenesh	Sidama	88.96	Natural	$29.10/lb
3	14	Azalech	Sidama	87.61	Natural	$10.20/lb
4	27	Tadess	South Eth.	87.02	Natural	$10.30/lb

That was the year Basha Bekele’s 74158 took first place and the record price. 74112’s best that year was sixth.³

Three things fall out of these tables:

It is a workhorse, not a champion. 74112’s best recorded finish anywhere is second (2022, 90.25) and its best score is 90.50 (2021, rank 2a). It has never taken a national title. But it puts more lots into the published tables than almost anything else in Ethiopia, and it does it across four different administrative regions.

It is overwhelmingly dried as a natural. Every 74112 lot in all three years above was natural-processed except one — and that one exception, the anaerobic rank-2 lot in 2022, is the single most valuable 74112 lot on record. See Natural process and Anaerobic fermentation.

The money is thin above the top of the table. Strip out the 189.10 rank-2 lot and the remaining twelve priced 74112 lots sold between **9.00 and $40.10 a pound**. That is the ordinary shape of an auction: one determined bidder at the top, and a long tail underneath. See Premiumisation.

To verify

The research pass behind this note concluded there were no competition results at all. The automated report used to build this page states that it found “no verifiable competition placing, auction result, buyer name, or lot price” for a 74112 lot. That is contradicted by all three tables above, every row of which was read directly off an official Alliance for Coffee Excellence or Cup of Excellence page. The tables stand; the negative finding is recorded here only so nobody re-derives it and “corrects” the page. The same thing happened on JARC 74158.

To verify

This wiki disagrees with itself about one 2021 National Winner. Bensa records a 2021 National Winner as “Faysel Abdosh Yonis,” variety 74112, natural, 87.26, from Bensa woreda in Sidama. JARC 74158 lists the same producer name in its results table, as 74158. The official 2021 page read for this note gives a National Winner named “Feysel Abdosh Coffee Supplier” with variety 74112, scoring 86.41, in Oromia, West Arsi, Nensebo — a different score and a different end of the country. The name is close enough to be a transliteration of the same entity, but the score and the district are not reconcilable, and the variety attribution on the 74158 page cannot be right at the same time as the one on Bensa. Treat the district and score of that entry as unsettled.

Where it came from

Here the evidence gets much thinner than the competition record, and the honest answer is that nobody consulted for this note has produced an institutional document.

What is not in doubt: 74112 is a JARC selection, one of the numbered plants the station pulled out of Ethiopia’s forests and propagated from around 1970 onward. That is consistent across every trade source and matches JARC’s documented mandate — collect and conserve germplasm, develop cultivars combining yield, disease resistance and quality, and multiply seed for farmers. The full story of the institution is on Jimma Agricultural Research Center.

Note what is missing from that brief: flavour. These plants were selected to survive Coffee berry disease — a fungus that blackens the fruit on the branch while it is still growing, and the biggest single threat to an Ethiopian crop — and to yield on a one- or two-hectare smallholding. The competition record above arrived four decades later as a side effect.

To verify

The origin story: Metu Bishari, Illubabor, 1974. A single coffee glossary states that 74112 comes from the Metu Bishari selections taken in the forests of the Illubabor Zone of western Ethiopia, that the selection was made in 1974, and that it was chosen for resistance to coffee berry disease. That page returned HTTP 403 to every attempt made here, so the claim is carried second-hand from the research report behind this note. It is plausible and it lines up with JARC 74158, whose Metu Bishari origin is separately reported by a roaster — but a glossary is not an institutional source, and no JARC or EIAR bulletin was located. The widely repeated trade reading that the leading 74 means the year of collection is folk knowledge here, not a documented decoding.

To verify

The traits attributed to it. A commercial specialty site cited on the JARC 74158 page describes 74112 as compact and early-maturing. Nothing consulted contradicts that, and nothing corroborates it either — it is one page with no agronomic document behind it. Do not quote it as a varietal characteristic.

To verify

Whether “74112” always means the same plant. No JARC, EIAR, CQI or World Coffee Research pedigree record for 74112 was located. Merchants appear to use the code consistently, but there is no verified register proving that a 74112 lot from Sidama and a 74112 lot from Jimma are the same genetic line. The variety is also routinely sold blended with its siblings — “74110/74112” and “74158, 74110 & 74112” are common lot labels — so a bag carrying the number is often not a single-variety coffee at all.

Where it is grown

The official results are the best map. Across 2021, 2022 and 2024, 74112 lots were entered from Sidama (Arbegona, Bona Zuria, Bura), Oromia (West Arsi/Nensebo), SNNPR including Gedeo (Gedeb, Yirgacheffe) and the region now filed as South Ethiopia.¹²³ That is a plant grown right across Ethiopia’s specialty belt, not a regional speciality.

Roaster lot sheets add the southwest — Guji, Jimma and Limu — but none of those pages could be read for this note.

To verify

Four documented lots that could not be checked at source. The research behind this note records these, and every page returned HTTP 403 or 429 when fetched here. All four are stated as claims, not facts:

• Hateso village, Dambi Uddo district, Guji zone, Oromia, grown at up to 2,200 m — a lot sold as “74112” that the roaster says also contains landrace varieties.⁴
• Uddo Hadammaa, Shakiso, Guji — a lot named after the Goraa bush, processed at Suke Drying Station with cherry from about 23 farmers at an average 2,100 m, containing 74158, 74110 and 74112, slightly de-pulped and then dried on raised beds without fermentation for 15–20 days. The source is a social-media post.⁵
• Kedamesa village, Limu, Oromia — produced by Negash Abarago on his family farm at 2,050 m, harvested October–December 2023, washed at the village drying station, listed as “Jarc 74110/74112” with a cup score of 88. This is the only cupping score for 74112 outside competition found anywhere, and it comes from a shop listing rather than a cupping form.⁶
• Gomma, Jimma, Oromia — a natural-processed Tokuma Farmer Group lot at 1,950–2,150 m containing JARC 74110 and JARC 74112, dried slowly on raised beds for around three weeks.⁷

A fifth offering, a washed 74112 credited to Mike Mamo and Gure Kesso, is listed in the research behind this note with no location or altitude given, and its page could not be read either.⁸

The pattern across all four located lots is worth noting even if the details are not confirmed: 1,950 m to 2,200 m, smallholder groups, and 74112 sold alongside its siblings rather than alone.

To verify

No entry in the industry variety catalogue. World Coffee Research’s variety database is the reference this wiki uses for SL28, Bourbon and the rest. The JARC 74158 page records that WCR returned HTTP 404 for its sibling and for the catalogue index. No WCR record was located for 74112 either, so no agronomic data on this page comes from WCR — everything here is competition records and roaster copy.

What it tastes like

There is no reliable varietal flavour profile, and this note will not invent one.

What can be said is structural. Every one of the twenty-three ranked 74112 lots above except one was a natural — dried whole in the cherry — and naturals in Ethiopia run heavily to berry and stone fruit regardless of the plant underneath. The one lot that broke away from the pack on price was the one that broke away on process: an anaerobic. Processing, altitude and drying discipline move an Ethiopian cup at least as much as the variety does.

The scores are the honest sensory record: 86.4 to 90.5 across three national competitions, judged under Cup of Excellence protocol. On what those numbers mean, see Cupping and Coffee scoring.

Why it matters

74112 is the best illustration in this wiki of the second tier of a research programme. JARC 74158 gets the headlines because it wins outright and sets records. But a breeding programme is not judged on its champion — it is judged on whether the whole cohort performs, on ordinary farms, year after year.

By that test the JARC selections are extraordinary. In 2022 the numbered plants took the entire published top eight of Ethiopia’s national competition, and 74112 was the one that came second. Three years later it was still putting four lots into the ranked table. That is a 1970s government disease-resistance programme still supplying the top of a national quality competition half a century on — and doing it through smallholders on two-hectare plots, not estates.

It is also a caution about labels. Buy a bag marked 74112 and you may well be buying 74110 as well, and possibly some landrace on top. The number is real, and it is a great deal more information than “heirloom” — but it is not the guarantee of a single plant that the tidy label implies.

Related

• JARC 74158 — the famous sibling, and the plant behind Ethiopia’s record auction price
• JARC 74110 · JARC 74165 — the other numbered siblings it shares lots and podiums with
• Jimma Agricultural Research Center · Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research — the station that selected it, and its parent body
• Ethiopia — the forests it was collected from, and the origin of arabica itself
• Sidama · Bensa · Yirgacheffe — the regions its ranked lots come from
• Cup of Excellence · Alliance for Coffee Excellence · Cup of Excellence records by country — where its results are recorded
• Basha Bekele — the 2024 champion whose 74158 lot outranked every 74112 that year
• Natural process · Anaerobic fermentation · Washed process — the processes it appears under
• Coffee berry disease · Coffee leaf rust — the diseases JARC’s programme selects against
• Cupping · Coffee scoring — what 90.25 means
• SL28 — the other African numbered research-station selection, and the closest comparison
• Geisha — the boutique variety Ethiopia’s records conspicuously do not involve
• World Coffee Research — the industry variety catalogue, which has no record of this one
• Premiumisation — why one $189 lot says nothing about what 74112 is worth

Official links

• (no official variety page found — 74112 has no entry in the World Coffee Research catalogue, and JARC’s own site at eiar.gov.et is recorded as refusing connections on Jimma Agricultural Research Center and JARC 74158)
• Official results — Cup of Excellence, Ethiopia 2022 — the year 74112 placed second and the numbered JARC selections took the whole top eight
• Official results — Cup of Excellence, Ethiopia 2021 — ten ranked 74112 lots plus two National Winners
• Official results — Cup of Excellence, Ethiopia 2024 — four ranked 74112 lots

Footnotes

1. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Ethiopia 2022 results and auction — confirmed via WebFetch; source of the 2022 table, the rank-2 lot’s price and weight, and the variety breakdown of the top eight ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Cup of Excellence — Ethiopia 2021 official results — confirmed via WebFetch; source of the 2021 table and the two 74112 National Winners ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Ethiopia 2024 results and auction — confirmed via WebFetch; source of the 2024 table ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Dapper & Wise — 74112, the best coffee you’ve never heard of — source of the Hateso / Dambi Uddo lot; returned HTTP 429 here and was not read at source ↩

5. Sookoo Coffee / Suke Drying Station — JARC 74158, 74110 & 74112 (Instagram) — source of the Goraa bush lot; a social-media post, not read at source ↩

6. Saint Jude Coffee — Negash Abarago, Jarc 74110/74112, Ethiopia — source of the Limu lot and its 88 score; a shop listing, not read at source ↩

7. Ozone Coffee NZ — Tokuma natural, JARC 74110 & JARC 74112 — source of the Gomma / Jimma lot; returned HTTP 429 here and was not read at source ↩

8. The Bean Geek — Washed JARC 74112 by Mike Mamo and Gure Kesso, Ethiopia — a further 74112 offering listed in the research behind this note; returned HTTP 403 here and was not read at source ↩