BURSA UNIQUE

Bursa is a kebele high in the Arbegona woreda of Sidama. Mulugeta Muntasha grew up there and spent years driving trucks in Arsi before he came home in 2021 and built the Dawencho drying station. It went well almost at once. His site took second place in the Ethiopian Cup of Excellence that first year, and the year after that four of the ten best lots in the country had passed through his hands, including the one that won it. He has kept placing since.The gardens around the station sit at 2200-2350 masl and the cherry comes in from a few hundred neighbouring smallholders working plots of a hectare or two. Up that high the cherry ripens slowly and arrives dense and sweet.Unique is his cold fermentation lot. The cherry is picked ripe and rested through a long cold ferment, then dried whole as a natural. By his own account nothing holds the tank down but the ground water and the cold night air, so the ferment builds slowly and evenly and gets stopped before it turns.We taste red berry and brown sugar, with apricot and lemon coming through behind them.