Bursa Coffee

The Sidama highlands above Arbegona from the air: a road winding between forest, banana groves and smallholder plots.

Arbegona · Sidama · Ethiopia

Coffee that carries the true
essence of its origin

Grown, processed and exported from the high forests of Arbegona — pure, fragrant, and memorable, cup after cup.

Discover

Our story

A legacy rooted in Arbegona

Mulugeta Muntasha started farming coffee here thirty years ago, when prices barely covered the cost of production. He persevered, and gradually expanded. Today his son Degefu is scaling Bursa into a specialty producer and exporter — father and son, two generations, one hillside.

Read the full story

Mulugeta Muntasha standing over a raised bed of drying parchment coffee at the station he founded in Arbegona.
Mulugeta Muntasha at the drying beds.
Degefu Mulugeta spreading ripe cherries across a drying bed, a child and workers among the rows of beds behind him.
Degefu Mulugeta, spreading ripe cherry.
The Sidama highlands above Arbegona, a waterfall falling through dense forest beside the Bursa washing station.
The forests above Arbegona, where every Bursa lot begins.

The name

Bursa is a sweetly scented wood from the Sidama highlands, burned as incense — its gentle smoke believed to relieve headaches and calm a room.

For us the name carries that same promise: natural aroma, authenticity, and the healing character found in a cup of Ethiopian coffee. Pure, fragrant, and memorable.

Taste & flavour

One variety, a wide range of complex coffees

The resilient 74158 landrace is the foundation of everything we grow — cultivated organically under shade above 2,350 metres, hand-picked at peak ripeness. From that single cultivar our processing draws washed, natural, honey, anaerobic, underwater and dark-room lots, scoring 87–91+ and prized by specialty importers.

Explore our coffee

Ripe and ripening coffee cherries clustered along a branch under glossy dark-green leaves.
Ripe cherries of the 74158 variety.
Degefu Mulugeta lifting a handful of dried cherry from a bed inside a ventilated dark room, breathing in the aroma.
Assessing dried cherry inside a ventilated dark room.

The stations

Processed with care

Eight methods, each drawing a different cup from the same fruit — including two developed at our own Bursa Station.

Washed parchment drying on a raised bed that runs away toward the treeline under a clear highland sky.Washed01Bergamot · jasmine · lime zestWhole cherries drying intact on a raised bed for the natural process, the bed stretching toward the forest edge.Natural02Bold, fruit-forward, full-bodiedHoney-process coffee drying with mucilage still on the parchment, the beds turning sticky gold in the sun.Honey03Caramel · stone fruit · toffeeSealed tanks used for oxygen-free anaerobic fermentation of whole cherries at the Bursa station.Anaerobic04Mango · rum · dark chocolateThe natural spring pool at Bursa Station where sealed coffee is submerged in metal cages for underwater fermentation.Underwater fermentation06Bright acidity · floral · clarityCoffee drying on raised beds inside a ventilated dark room, out of direct sun, for slow even moisture reduction.Dark room drying07Clean, stable, enhanced sweetness

All eight methods

87–91+
SCA cup scores
2,350 m
Growing elevation
74,158
Seedlings distributed
5
Washing stations
Bursa's drying field: dozens of raised beds carrying separated lots — red cherry, purple natural and pale parchment — laid in bands across the valley floor beneath forested hills.
Separated lots drying, bed by bed, across the valley floor.
Rows of young 74158 coffee seedlings in nursery bags, ready for distribution to smallholder farmers.
Young 74158 seedlings, ready for smallholder farmers.
Dozens of workers in broad sun hats seated along the raised beds, hand-sorting parchment lot by lot.
The sorting line, working the beds by hand.

Sustainability & community

Committed to our land and our people

Quality lifts a whole hillside. We have distributed 74,158 improved coffee seedlings, run farmer training and quality programmes, and funded solar systems for local schools. New farmers join each year, as they see their neighbours rewarded for quality.

How growing together works

The sorting line at full strength — the length of the drying field worked by hand.
The sorting line at full strength.

Cup of Excellence

Offering our very finest lots

2021
Second place — 90.5 pts
Duwancho cooperative, a natural-processed 74158 lot.
2022
National champion
Legesse Botasa Dikale won first place; Bukato Duge Bale, Tilahun Horsa Fata and Muluneh Tute Galcho took 4th, 6th and 8th, among more than 800 entries.
2024
Third place — 89.70 pts
Bukto Dure Bore, and the CoE auction winner that year — the streak resumed after 2023.

See the full record

Location

Arbegona, Sidama — and Addis Ababa

The Muntasha washing station sits in the highlands of Arbegona, in the Sidama Region of southern Ethiopia, with our export office in Addis Ababa. Wholesale buyers, importers and roasters are welcome to visit origin.

Contact us

The drying field under a broken sky, each bed a different lot at a different stage, the Sidama hills rising behind.
The station drying field from the air.

@bursacoffee

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Ripe and ripening coffee cherries clustered along a branch under glossy dark-green leaves.Parchment coffee close up on the bed, pale gold and evenly spread for slow drying.Two of the Bursa team smelling a double handful of dried cherry coffee together beside the drying beds.Ripe cherries close up on the drying bed, deep red turning to wine as the fruit dehydrates.Honey-process coffee drying with mucilage still on the parchment, the beds turning sticky gold in the sun.

Work with Bursa

Request samples, current offerings and pricing for the coming harvest, or talk to us about a wholesale contract.

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