What Does 74110 Mean in Coffee? What Are Ethiopia's Selected and Cultivated Varieties?

With the continuous development of specialty coffee, there are now conservatively estimated to be over a hundred recognized and named varieties. Have you noticed that many varieties are named with numbers, such as 74110, 74112, and others? Today, FrontStreet Coffee will introduce you to a regular in Ethiopia's Cup of Excellence: 74110.

Heirloom Native Varieties

Before understanding 74110, we need to understand the concept of "Heirloom" varieties. As the birthplace of coffee, Ethiopia should have around ten thousand varieties. Firstly, the sheer number of varieties makes it difficult to identify and distinguish them through genetic testing; they can only be roughly distinguished by farmers' experience. Secondly, the local government, to protect these native unknown varieties and prevent various coffee-growing countries from competing to obtain them, has collectively used the term "Heirloom" as a general designation.

JARC

After the 1970s, coffee anthracnose broke out in Ethiopia. When ripe and green berries are infected with the disease, water-soaked spots appear on their surface, followed by sunken lesions that gradually darken to dark brown and grayish-black before eventually dying on the tree or even dropping as fruit. This disease can reduce coffee tree yields by 20% to 30%, and in severe cases, even reach 70% to 80%. At that time, the Harar and Yirgacheffe production areas in the eastern half of the Great Rift Valley suffered devastating losses, while coffee trees in the western half were relatively less affected.

Merely spraying pesticides is not a long-term solution; the fundamental approach is to find local varieties with disease-resistant genes. As the birthplace of coffee, Ethiopia has a unique advantage in finding varieties with disease-resistant genes. The Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC), located in the western half of the Great Rift Valley, began forming a "bean search team" to collect seeds from over 600 coffee trees in the western forests of the Great Rift Valley. Experts then used scientific identification and field trials to identify varieties resistant to anthracnose. And 74110 is one of the first 13 new anthracnose-resistant varieties released by JARC.

74110

74110 is a code given by JARC, where "74" represents the year of discovery, and "110" is the experimental sample number. Therefore, 74110 is a specific, single variety.

The 74110 plant has a short and compact form, with small leaves, fruits, and beans, green tips, short internodes, and high yield. In terms of flavor, 74110 exhibits citrus acidity and delicate floral notes, possessing the typical taste of Ethiopian coffee-growing regions. To borrow from Mr. Han Huaizong's description in "The Fourth Wave of Specialty Coffee" - it's a "fruit bomb," which speaks to the wonderful nature of its flavor.

From its discovery in 1974 to the present, 74110 has become one of the most widely cultivated modern varieties in Ethiopia today (the other being 74112) due to its high disease resistance and ability to adapt to different soil and water conditions. It is also the most in-demand variety among improved modern varieties. With vigorous promotion and widespread cultivation, 74110 has frequently appeared on Ethiopia's Cup of Excellence leaderboard, winning no fewer than twenty awards between 2020 and 2022.

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