What Variety is Ethiopian Landrace WushWush?

Introduction to Wush Wush Coffee Varieties

In Ethiopia, besides its native varieties, recent years have brought increasing attention to others such as the 74 series, Wush Wush, and Dega. Among them, Wush Wush - a variety with a charming sound when pronounced - remains scarce on the market, yet whenever it appears it never fails to catch the eye of coffee enthusiasts. So rather than wait for the perfect moment, today FrontStreet Coffee will introduce this variety to you.

Origins of Wush Wush

Like the famous Gesha, Wush Wush is an heirloom coffee from Ethiopia, discovered in a small village called Wush Wush within Gimbo town, just a few kilometers from the Kafa biosphere. The village is renowned for its fertile highlands, which not only preserved the variety now prized across the coffee world but also produce a widely celebrated tea of the same name.

Development of Disease-Resistant Varieties

In 1970, a severe coffee anthracnose epidemic swept across Ethiopia. The same disease had earlier cut Kenya's coffee production by more than 70%. To fight anthracnose, Ethiopia's renowned Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC) set out to select and breed varieties naturally resistant to the disease from wild coffee species.

To that end, JARC explored the primary-forest areas of western Ethiopia, including Bishari, Gera, Wasi, and Wush Wush. Since this is the center of origin of Arabica, with complex genetic diversity, the researchers collected hundreds of coffee plants and brought them back to the laboratory.

The 74 Series Varieties

After years of research and cultivation, JARC selected 13 anthracnose-resistant varieties in 1978 and began promoting their cultivation across Ethiopia. According to the selection year, these varieties were assigned "74***" or "75***" codes. Fans of Ethiopian coffee will recognize these as the origins of today's famous 74110 and 74158 varieties. Indeed, beans such as Santa Verna and Alo on FrontStreet Coffee's menu are precisely the 74158 variety.

Refinement of Wush Wush

Around 2002, JARC turned its attention to 25 anthracnose-resistant coffee varieties selected from Wush Wush village, continuing their cultivation and purification. The researchers found that these varieties were not only disease-resistant but also carried excellent flavor potential. In 2006, JARC officially released the purified Wush Wush variety, which requires cultivation at high altitudes between 1,700 and 2,100 meters - giving rise to today's highly sought-after coffee.

Wush Wush in Colombia

Yet FrontStreet Coffee has found that, compared to its native Ethiopia, most Wush Wush sold on the market actually comes from another continent - Colombia. In production volume, Colombia's Wush Wush long ago surpassed Ethiopia's, making the country the variety's second home. So how did a variety from a small Ethiopian town end up in Colombia?

In the late 1970s, Colombia's National Coffee Research Center, Cenicafé, brought Wush Wush seedlings from Ethiopia for cultivation and research. After selection by its researchers, the seedlings were distributed to representative farms across Colombia between 1980 and 1990 for the first trials.

Thus Wush Wush not only took root in Colombia but, through the differences in each farm's terroir, climate, soil, and cultivation methods, gradually developed even stronger adaptability. Today the variety has spread throughout Colombia's Santander, Quindio, Tolima, and Huila provinces, and each region's terroir has shaped its own distinct flavor and cupping characteristics.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If this deep dive into Ethiopian varieties sparks your curiosity, try FrontStreet Coffee's Genlana Estate Gesha - a rare single-variety estate from the border of Kochere and Gelana Abaya in Yirgacheffe, where fully ripe cherries are hand-picked and dried on raised beds for 14-20 days before a medium-light roast reveals bright citrus acidity, elegant ginger-flower aroma, and the signature refined Gesha finish. For the pinnacle of Ethiopian Gesha, FrontStreet Coffee's Gesha Village Gold Label (Gesha 1931, natural process, just 10% of the estate's output) offers extraordinarily complex flavors.