JARC 74158
JARC 74158 is a coffee plant with a filing number instead of a name. It was selected and released by Ethiopia’s Jimma Agricultural Research Center — JARC — and it is the variety that keeps appearing on the highest-scoring Ethiopian coffees of the past decade, including Basha Bekele’s 2024 lot that sold for $445 a pound, the most ever paid at a Cup of Excellence auction anywhere.
If you have ever bought a bag of Ethiopian coffee labelled simply “74158”, this is it. The label looks like a barcode because it is one: a government research centre catalogued the plant, and the number stuck.
That matters more than it sounds. Most Ethiopian coffee is sold as “heirloom” — trade shorthand for a mix of local types nobody has identified. A bag that says 74158 is making a much stronger claim: this is one known, named, deliberately propagated plant, and somebody kept it separate all the way from the tree to the sack. See Sidama for why that separation is the whole game in Ethiopia.
Where it came from
Everything in this paragraph is quoted from a roaster’s lot description that was fetched and read directly (September Coffee, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch):
- The Jimma Agricultural Research Centre (JARC), “one of Ethiopia’s federal agricultural research centers,” approved the release of 74158 in 1979.
- The plant “originally came out of the Metu Bishari Selections taken from mother plants from the Metu woreda (district) of the Illuababora zone” — forest material from southwestern Ethiopia, several hundred kilometres from the Sidama highlands where the famous lots now come from.
- It “was selected and propagated for its high yield potential and resistance to coffee berry disease” — a fungal rot that blackens the fruit on the branch while it is still growing, and the single biggest threat to an Ethiopian coffee crop.
So the plant was not bred for flavour. It was bred to survive and produce, in a country that needed volume, and its reputation as a competition winner arrived forty-odd years later as a side effect.
To verify
The other traits attributed to it. One specialty site states that 74158 was selected for cup quality and nematode resistance (tiny root-attacking soil worms), that its sibling 74110 is a rust-resistant line from Illubabor forest material, that 74112 is compact and early-maturing, and that JARC keeps “over 450 accessions catalogued since 1970” (Bean Brew Digest, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). None of this is contradicted anywhere consulted, and it fits JARC’s known role — but it is a single commercial-content source with no institutional document behind it, and it disagrees in emphasis with September Coffee’s “high yield and coffee berry disease” framing above. Do not quote the accession count or the nematode claim as fact.
To verify
What the number actually means, and when the plant was collected. A German roaster’s product page states that 74158 was “introduced to Ethiopia in 1971” and decodes the number as “74 (years that the coffee seeds were collected) and 158 (varietal number)” (Lucky Cat Coffee, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). This cannot all be right at once: seeds collected in 1974 cannot have been introduced in 1971, and neither date sits comfortably with JARC’s documented 1979 release. The 74-means-1974 reading is widely repeated in the trade and is probably close to the truth, but no primary JARC or EIAR bulletin was located to confirm it. Treat the decoding as folk knowledge and the 1971 date as unsupported.
To verify
The nickname “Walega.” The research behind this note cites a roaster journal claiming 74158 is “also known locally as Walega” and is grown mainly in Gera, Jimma and Metu at 1,800–2,350 m (Xliii Coffee, returned HTTP 403 on access 2026-07-23). The page could not be read here, the nickname appears in no other source consulted, and Wollega is separately the name of an Ethiopian zone — which is exactly how a place name gets mistaken for a variety name. Not stated as fact.
To verify
No entry in the industry variety catalogue. World Coffee Research’s variety database is the reference this wiki uses for SL28, Bourbon, Timor Hybrid and the rest. Its record for 74158 was checked on 2026-07-23 at the same URL pattern that works for every other variety here and returned HTTP 404, as did the catalogue index. That is not proof the variety is absent — the page slug may differ — but it does mean no agronomic data on this page comes from WCR. Everything below is sourced from competition records and roasters.
Why it is famous: the competition record
This is the part that does not depend on roaster copy. Ethiopia’s Cup of Excellence results are published by the Alliance for Coffee Excellence, and 74158 is all over them.
| Year | Producer | Rank | Score | Process | Headline price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Assefa Dukamo Korma (Daye Bensa, Gatta Farm) | 7 | 89.21 | Natural | $23.10/lb |
| 2021 | Tamiru Tadesse Tesema (Alo Coffee) | 5 | 90.10 | Natural | $26.40/lb |
| 2021 | Assefa Dukale Wakayo Coffee Supplier | 30 | 87.38 | Anaerobic natural | — |
| 2021 | Faysel Abdosh Yonis | National Winner | 87.26 | Natural | — |
| 2024 | Basha Bekele | 1 | 90.50 | Natural | $445.00/lb |
Sources: Cup of Excellence — Ethiopia 2021 and ACE farm directory — 89.21, both accessed 2026-07-23 and confirmed via WebFetch; the 2024 row via ACE — Ethiopia 2024 as recorded on Basha Bekele. Every one of these lots is from Bensa woreda in Sidama except where noted.
Two observations worth holding onto:
It wins as a natural. Four of the five rows above were dried whole in the cherry rather than washed — see Natural process. Ethiopia spent a century known for washed coffee; its 74158 record run is almost entirely fruit-dried.
It is not Geisha. The variety that dominates the top of the auction market in Panama, Colombia and beyond has no part in Ethiopia’s record run. The plant holding the all-time Cup of Excellence price record is a 1970s government yield-and-disease selection, which is roughly the opposite of a boutique variety.
The one Ethiopian record 74158 does not hold is the private-auction high. That belongs to Alo Coffee’s Echoes of the Peak sale at US$1,739/kg in 2025 — reported as 74158 grown at 2,400–2,580 m, though that identification comes from news coverage rather than an official lot sheet (Addis Insight, accessed 2026-07-23, as recorded on Alo Coffee).
Where it is grown
74158 started in the southwest and travelled east. Documented plantings:
| Place | Altitude | Who | Source quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bombe, Bensa, Sidama | 2,250 m | Basha Bekele & Bekele Belaycho | Roaster page, fetched |
| Chilaka, Bensa | 2,320–2,400 m | Tamiru Tadesse (Alo Coffee) | Roaster page, not fetched |
| Chire, Sidama | 1,920 m | — (semi-forest system) | Single low-authority source |
| Boku, Hambela Wamena, Guji, Oromia | 2,350 m | Esayas Beriso, Boku Abel Station | Roaster page, fetched |
| Uddo Hadammaa, Shakiso, Guji | ~2,100 m | ~23 farmers via Suke Drying Station | Social-media post |
The pattern is consistent even if individual figures are not: this is a high-altitude specialty plant in practice, sitting between roughly 1,900 and 2,600 metres, and it has spread well beyond the Jimma and Illuababora country it was selected in. The Bensa and Guji plantings are where the money is.
To verify
Whether the Bombe producer is the Basha Bekele. The washed lot in the first row is credited to “Basha Bekele & Bekele Belaycho” in Bombe, Bensa, Sidama (September Coffee, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch) — the same name, same woreda and same variety as this wiki’s Basha Bekele, the 2024 Cup of Excellence winner. It is very likely the same farmer, but the roaster page does not mention the COE win, the competition lot was natural rather than washed, and Basha and Bekele are both common Ethiopian names. Treated here as a separate documented planting, not as confirmed to be his.
Note the “semi-forest system” in the Chire row. In Ethiopia coffee is commonly grown under thinned natural forest canopy rather than on cleared planted land — a management style with no real equivalent in Latin America.
How it gets processed
There is no house style. Roasters have sold 74158 processed in at least four ways:
- Natural — the whole cherry dried around the bean. This is what every top competition lot above used. At Boku Abel Station in Guji the cherries are “dry-fermented on raised beds,” turned through the day, covered during the hottest hours and at night, drying in 7–10 days (Lucky Cat Coffee, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch).
- Washed, with a cultured yeast — the Bombe/Bensa lot was hand-picked, floated, hand-pulped, then fermented under clean water with Lalcafe INTENSO yeast for 48 hours in shade, mixed every 12 hours, and dried on raised beds under shade for 25 days (September Coffee, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). Adding a commercial yeast strain is a deliberate steering of the fermentation rather than letting whatever is on the fruit take over.
- Hybrid wash and “mosto” anaerobic natural — both sold under those labels by roasters, with no protocol published.
To verify
The two experimental labels. “Hybrid wash” (Hyunah Coffee) and “Mosto Anaerobic Natural” (Cool Beans) are marketing terms on product pages, neither fetched here. Mosto normally means fermenting juice, which suggests the cherry is dried with recirculated fruit liquid, but no time, temperature or additive is stated by either seller. The label is the only verifiable part. See Anaerobic fermentation for what these terms usually cover.
What it tastes like
The strongest sensory evidence is the competition record, not a variety profile. The Alliance for Coffee Excellence jury notes on the 2020 Gatta Farm 74158 lot run to lemon-lime, lychee, quince, guava, papaya, cinnamon, orange, prune, blueberry and dulce de leche (ACE farm directory, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch, as recorded on Sidama).
The washed yeast-fermented Bensa lot is described by its roaster as an “intense aroma of nectarines and florals,” with “intense sweetness of juicy peaches and bright tropical and lemon-lime citric acidity” (September Coffee, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch).
Read all of this as what these particular lots did, not as a fixed varietal signature. Processing, altitude and drying discipline move an Ethiopian cup at least as much as the plant does — which is exactly why the same variety shows up as blueberry-and-dulce-de-leche in one column and nectarine-and-lemon-lime in another. On how these judgements are produced, see Cupping and Coffee scoring.
To verify
The one published cupping score outside competition. A 74158 lot grown at 1,920 m in Chire is reported as scoring 85.2 points under SCAA protocol (2023) with notes of “stewed plum, black tea tannin, and cedar resin” (Bean Brew Digest, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). No cupping form, competition, or cupper is named, and the page is a single commercial source. Not a verifiable score.
To verify
Retail prices. The research behind this note recorded a Guji 74158 microlot at €17.75 per 250 g (≈€88.75/kg). The product page was fetched on 2026-07-23 and showed the item sold out with the price displayed as €0.00, so the figure could not be confirmed (Lucky Cat Coffee). No farm-gate, FOB or export price for 74158 was found in any source. The auction figures in the table above are competition prices — one determined bidder, one small bag — and say nothing about what an ordinary 74158 lot is worth. See Premiumisation.
Why it matters
74158 is the clearest case in this wiki of a utility plant that turned out to be a great one. It was released to help Ethiopian farmers survive coffee berry disease and pick more cherry. Nobody selected it to win auctions. Four decades later it is the variety underneath the highest price the Cup of Excellence has ever recorded, and one of a small handful of named Ethiopian plants that buyers now ask for by number.
It also quietly undermines the usual story about famous varieties. Geisha is a rare plant with a rediscovery legend attached. 74158 is a serial number from a government research station, planted by smallholders on two-hectare plots, and it beat the field.
Related
- Sidama — the region, and the Bensa woreda where nearly every record 74158 lot grew
- Basha Bekele — the smallholder whose natural-process 74158 set the all-time Cup of Excellence auction record
- Daye Bensa — Gatta Farm’s 2020 74158 lot, the best-documented single entry
- Alo Coffee · Echoes of the Peak — the Bensa producer whose private auction lots are reported as 74158
- Jimma Agricultural Research Center — the institution that selected and released it
- Cup of Excellence · Cup of Excellence records by country · Alliance for Coffee Excellence — where its results are recorded
- Natural process · Washed process · Anaerobic fermentation — the processing families it appears in
- Cupping · Coffee scoring — what 89.21 and 90.50 mean
- Coffee leaf rust — the other disease Ethiopian breeding programmes select against
- SL28 — the other African numbered research-station selection, and the closest comparison
- World Coffee Research — the variety catalogue that has no record of this one
- Geisha — the variety Ethiopia’s records conspicuously do not involve
- Premiumisation — why an auction price is not a market price
Official links
- (no official variety page found — the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, JARC’s parent body, was checked at
eiar.gov.eton 2026-07-23 and the server refused the connection) - World Coffee Research — variety catalogue — the industry reference database; returned HTTP 404 for a 74158 record on 2026-07-23 (link is to a working record for comparison)
- Official results — Cup of Excellence, Ethiopia 2021 — primary record of 74158 competition lots
Sources
- Cup of Excellence — Ethiopia 2021 official results — accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch (via Sidama and Alo Coffee)
- Alliance for Coffee Excellence — farm directory entry 89.21, Daye Bensa Gatta Farm — accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch
- Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Ethiopia 2024 results and auction — accessed 2026-07-23 (via Basha Bekele)
- September Coffee — Basha Bekele & Bekele Belaycho, Ethiopia — accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch (source of the 1979 release, Metu Bishari origin and selection criteria)
- Lucky Cat Coffee — JARC 74158, Esayas Beriso, Boku Hambela Guji — accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch
- Addis Insight — Ethiopian coffee hits $1,739 per kilo in record-breaking auction — accessed 2026-07-23 (via Alo Coffee)
- Bean Brew Digest — Ethiopia Jimma research station varieties — accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch (single commercial source; every claim taken from it is flagged above)
- The Bean Geek — JARC 74158 coffee variety — cited in the research report, not independently fetched, 2026-07-23
- Hyunah Coffee — Alo Chilaka, JARC 74158, hybrid wash — cited in the research report, not independently fetched, 2026-07-23
- Cool Beans — ROSE, Alo mosto anaerobic natural — cited in the research report, not independently fetched, 2026-07-23
- Xliii Coffee — What is coffee variety 74158? — returned HTTP 403 on access 2026-07-23
- Sookoo Coffee / Suke Drying Station — JARC 74158, 74110 & 74112 (Instagram) — cited in the research report, not independently fetched, 2026-07-23