This is In My Mug coffee number 939, roasted and posted to subscribers on Friday 6th November 2026.
Bursting with sweet lemon, passionfruit and dried apricot, this is a vibrant cup packed with juicy yellow fruit. A gentle note of malted milk biscuit on the finish brings balance to a coffee that’s bright, expressive and full of festive cheer.
Pick up a bag of Ethiopian coffee and the detail often runs out just where you’d want it most. The variety says “landrace”. The name on the label belongs to a washing station, which usually means cherry from hundreds of small farms, tipped in together. Nobody’s being cagey. It’s simply how most of the country’s coffee is grown and traded.
This week’s coffee is the exception. We can tell you the village it was grown in, the named varieties on the trees, and the washing station that kept it apart from everything else. The man who runs that station even knows which farmers picked it. For Ethiopia, that’s about as rare as it gets.
It’s also our Festive Single Origin for 2026, and you’re among the first to taste it.
Back to Telila
If you were with us for IMM 886 last Christmas, the name Telila might ring a bell. Last year’s Festive Single Origin, a washed lot from the Genji Challa kebele in Jimma, came through Mike Mamo’s washing station too. It went down so well that we’ve gone straight back.
The idea behind the coffee hasn’t changed. Like the julkaffe that Nordic roasters release each December, our Festive Single Origin is the bright one in our Christmas line-up, there to sit alongside the Festive Blend rather than echo it. What has changed is the village.
Back to Yukro
A kebele is Ethiopia’s smallest administrative area, roughly a village and the farms around it. Yukro is one of them, a small community in the hills of Jimma at around 2,000 metres.
The first time we cupped our way through a table of Telila coffees, back in 2020, the Yukro lot was the one that stood out. We bought it that year and for several harvests after, before giving Genji Challa its turn last Christmas. Finding it on the cupping table again this year was a genuine treat, and we’re very glad to have it back.
The washing station that keeps names
Last year we told you that Telila keeps each kebele’s cherry separate when it arrives, something almost no other washing station in Ethiopia does. Most blend whatever comes through the gate and sell it under the station’s name. Telila often goes a step further and separates by delivery day too. So every cherry in this lot was grown by smallholders in Yukro and processed as its own lot, and Mike can trace it back to the individual farmers who contributed. That level of traceability is close to unheard of in Ethiopia.
We know them too. This lot is the cherry that 27 Yukro farmers delivered to Telila, and they deserve the credit by name: Abdu Musa, Abebe Makiso, Ali Hussain, Aliyi Hasan, Ansar She Ahmed, Arbise Desalegn, Ayisha Hasan Muhe, Buzayehu Cane, Endris Umar, Gazagn Habtamu, Hayalnech Desalegn, Ibrahim Said Muhe, Jamal Ali, Jamila Endris, Jamila Hussain, Mahammed Zeki, Mamadamin Mulat, Mansur Shekamal, Mohamed Hussain, Mohamed Said, Nuru Mohamed, Said Ali, Said Hussain, Said Ibre, Shishig Kiros, Umer Ali and Umer Indris.
Mike bought Telila in 2019, a couple of years after reforms made it possible for small, traceable lots to be exported directly rather than vanishing into the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange. He grew up around the trade, too. Today he runs Addis Exporter, the milling and exporting business his father founded, and that lifetime in coffee shows in how particular Telila is about every step.
How Telila washes its coffee
Washed coffee is all about clarity. The fruit comes off the seed before drying, so what you taste is the place and the plant rather than the process. That also leaves very little room to hide, which is why every step at Telila counts.
Ripe cherry is floated first, so anything underripe rises to the top and gets skimmed off. It’s then pulped and fermented for around 24 hours in tile-lined tanks, loosening the last of the sticky mucilage before the parchment is washed clean. Drying is slow and steady: 18 to 20 days on raised beds, with the coffee turned constantly so it dries evenly. Finally, it’s sealed into Ecotact hermetic bags for storage, a step that’s still rare in Ethiopia. The bags keep moisture and air out between drying and shipping, so the coffee that leaves Jimma tastes like the coffee that came off the beds.
That’s a lot of extra handling for a station buying from so many small farms, and it’s exactly why Telila lots keep finding their way onto our cupping table.
That clarity is exactly why we chose it. There are plenty of wild, experimental ferments around in specialty coffee right now, and lots of them are great in their own way. We just love this one for what it is: a classic, clean washed Ethiopian where the coffee gets to speak for itself and you can really taste Yukro. Next to the Festive Blend, our big, comfy coffee, that’s what makes it such a good counterpoint. We’ve kept the roast on the lighter side too. At medium-light, it really pops, with plenty of fruit acidity and sweetness.
Local trees, in more ways than one
Last year’s Genji Challa went out labelled simply “Ethiopian Landrace”. This year we can be more specific. The trees here are mostly JARC 74110 and 74112. Catchy names, we know.
Both began as single mother trees in the Metu-Bishari forest of neighbouring Illubabor, picked out by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center as coffee berry disease swept through Ethiopia’s crop in the early 1970s. They were catalogued in 1974 (hence the “74”) and released to farmers in 1979 for their disease resistance and reliable yields. Today they’re among the most common coffees across the south-west, and they can more than hold their own in the cup: at Ethiopia’s 2021 Cup of Excellence, 74110 placed second and 74112 fourth.
There’s something rather neat about drinking them from Gera. JARC is headquartered in Jimma and runs a research sub-centre in Gera itself, so these really are local trees.
They’re also the reason this coffee can carry variety names at all. Most Ethiopian coffee has never been individually catalogued, and in many lots, wild forest coffee, farmer-selected landraces and JARC selections all end up in the same cherry delivery. JARC selections are the one layer that comes with a number and a documented history. Pair that with a washing station that keeps every kebele separate, and you get an Ethiopian coffee you can trace from tree to cup.
Ethiopian landraces explained →
Coffee that gives back
Osito, the importer Mike is a partner in, puts 10 US cents from every pound of Telila coffee it sells towards projects at Kacho Tulla Primary School in Kecho Anderacha. The fund is run jointly by Addis Exporter, Telila and the school’s leadership, so every bag of this coffee plays a small part in the community around the washing station.
The rest of the Christmas line-up
Yours arrives in its usual In My Mug bag, dressed up with a special festive label. If you’d like to pass the cheer on, our Festive Single Origin is also on our website in a giftable festive box, a lovely present for any coffee lover on your list.
It has a partner, too. Our Festive Blend is the cosy one of the pair, all creamy milk chocolate, swirls of dark caramel and a flourish of hazelnut praline. Regulars will recognise the farms behind it, because it’s built on two of our longest-standing relationships. Half the blend is Finca Argentina from the Martinez family in El Salvador, and almost a third is Caturra from the Reyes family at San Patricio El Limón in Guatemala, rounded out with a pulped natural from Brazil’s Matas de Minas. For every bag of the Blend sold, we’re also donating to Felix, a charity that rescues good surplus food and gets it to people who need it.
Can’t choose? The Festive Duo brings the two together. The gift box comes with the 220g bags of each coffee, while the 500g and 1kg options arrive in our standard bags. Go on, ’tis the season!
Shop our Festive Single Origin →
Traceability
- Country: Ethiopia
- Region: Oromia
- Zone: Jimma
- Woreda: Gera
- Kebele: Yukro
- Washing station: Telila
- Washing station owner: Mike Mamo
- Exporter: Addis Exporter
- Importer: Osito
- Producers: 27 smallholders of Yukro kebele
- Elevation: 2,000 m.a.s.l.
- Varieties: JARC 74110 and JARC 74112
- Processing method: Washed
- Fermentation: Around 24 hours in tile-lined tanks
- Drying: 18 to 20 days on raised beds
- Storage: Ecotact hermetic bags
Cupping scores
Cupping notes: Lemon, passionfruit, dried apricot.
Cup of Excellence Cupping Scores
- Clean Cup: 7/8
- Sweetness: 7/8
- Acidity: 7/8
- Mouthfeel: 6/8
- Flavour: 7/8
- Aftertaste: 6/8
- Balance: 6/8
- Overall: 7/8
- Correction: +36
- Total: 89/100
If you’d like to find out more about how we score coffees, have a read of What Do Coffee Cupping Scores Actually Mean?, and if you fancy trying cupping yourself, we’ve got a guide to that too: What is Coffee Cupping.
Espresso recommendation
- Dose: 17.5g
- Yield: 36g
- Time: 28 to 30 seconds
Roasting information
Medium-light - keep this one at a steady pace and look for the end of first crack or just into the gap, keeping that fruit acidity and sweetness at full volume.