Introduction to Ethiopian Washed Sidamo G1 Shakiso Specialty Coffee Bean Varieties, Cultivation, and Market Price

Variety: Local Indigenous Heirloom

Producer: Local Smallholder Farmers

Flavor: White grape juice, citrus, Earl Grey tea notes

Sidamo Region

Sidamo coffee offers an incredibly diverse range of flavors. Different soil compositions, regional microclimates and countless indigenous coffee varieties produce distinct differences from one town to the next. The Sidamo production region lies in southern Ethiopia, where agriculture dominates the local economy and coffee growing areas cluster around the Great Rift Valley.

Shakisso Area Introduction

Shakisso sits in the Guji zone of Sidamo, in the southern part of the Oromia region, bordering Sidama and Gedeo. The area is dotted with mining pits originally dug for gold, leaving holes throughout the coffee growing land, which makes walking between plantations genuinely dangerous. Shakisso stands as a unique producing area within Guji and Sidamo, remote even by the standards of Sidamo itself. Gold mining is another local claim to fame, and a mix of miners, land disputes and ethnic tensions made the area unstable during 2006. Its greatest challenge today is simply manpower — finding enough people to tend the growing areas and bring in the harvest.

Local smallholders began cultivating organic coffee here in 2001, working closely with medium-sized producers who know how to grow forest coffee in highland conditions. This is one of the most distinctive micro-regions within Sidamo and is genuinely unique. Coffee from here consistently attracts market attention: Ninety Plus's legendary bean, Nekisse, takes its meaning from "Nectar from Shakisso," both its origin and its name.

Flavor Description: Lemon and citrus, bright crisp acidity, lemon, citrus, white grape juice, blackcurrant, Earl Grey tea notes in the finish

Manufacturer: Dazhen Coffee FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)
Ingredients: House-roasted
Shelf Life: 90 days
Net Weight: 227g
Packaging: Bulk coffee beans
Sugar Content: Sugar-free
Origin: Ethiopia
Coffee Type: Other
Roast Degree: Light roast

Ethiopian Sidamo Shakisso Washed

Country: Ethiopia

Grade: G1

Region: Shakisso producing area, Guji Zone

Roast Level: Light roast

Processing Method: Washed

"Ethiopian Sidamo" is a single-origin type of Arabica grown in Ethiopia's Sidamo province. Like most African coffees, Sidamo is characterized by small, grayish beans, but its own signatures include rich, spicy, wine-like or chocolate flavors and floral notes. The flavor found most consistently across all Sidamo coffee is lemon and citrus with bright, crisp acidity. The Sidamo family includes Yirgachefe and Guji coffees, both of which show excellent quality.

Washed coffees tend to show less of the wild side, with a purity and freshness that suits City to Full City roast levels. Some exceptional Ethiopian washed lots reveal lifted lemon, citrus essential oils, jasmine and honey, with more pronounced acidity and a lighter body.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the clean, lifted lemon-and-citrus profile of washed Ethiopian coffee is what you are chasing, FrontStreet's Ethiopian range is a good place to keep exploring.

FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe

The natural starting point for Ethiopian specialty coffee. Expect clear jasmine and bright citrus acidity. Yirgacheffe is a small town in southern Ethiopia, mild all year round, often wrapped in mist, cool and humid, where thousands of coffee trees flourish and give the region its interwoven florals and fruit acidity. The cup is light and elegant with a tea-like quality, drinking like a clean, refreshing lemon tea.

FrontStreet Gedingding Cooperative

Most Ethiopian coffee comes from garden-style smallholder farming, where each grower delivers cherries to a village-level processing station and the lot is sold under the producer group's name — which is why cooperatives of every size appear on labels. Gedingding sits in the Woka district at the southeastern edge of Yirgacheffe and was originally part of the Woka cooperative under the YCFCU union. As the search for traceability took hold, independent single-origin lots were identified one by one, and in 2012 Gedingding, with roughly 300 member farmers, was established as a cooperative in its own right. Because the pulp is removed before drying, Gedingding's own aromas come through more clearly, showing citrus and lemon with elegant white florals and an overall bright, fine flavor.

FrontStreet Kafa Forest

Where garden-style farms plant coffee in the backyard, Kafa Forest is best known for wild coffee: the trees grow between 1,400 and 2,100 meters under shade, in a pristine environment of microclimates, red soil and plentiful rain. Roasted medium-light, the grounds carry pronounced white florals; the entry shows bright lemon acidity with sweet orange and bergamot, a faint melon-and-nut sweetness on the return, and a green-tea-like body.