Ethiopia Washed Sidamo G1 Shakisso Premium Coffee Bean Growing Conditions, Geographic Location, and Climate

Ethiopian Sidamo: A Single-Origin Coffee

"Ethiopian Sidamo" is a single-origin coffee made up of Arabica grown in Ethiopia's Sidamo province. Like most African coffees, Sidamo beans are small and grayish, but the coffee is characterized by rich, spicy, wine-like or chocolate-like flavors and floral aromas. The most distinctive notes across all Sidamo coffees are lemon and citrus, with bright, crisp acidity. Sidamo includes the Yirgacheffe and Guji coffees, both of outstanding quality.

Coffee Details

Variety: Local native Heirloom

Producer: Local smallholder farmers

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

The Sidamo Region

Sidamo's coffee flavors are extraordinarily diverse: different soil compositions, regional microclimates, and countless native varieties create significant differences between the coffee of each town and district. The Sidamo region lies in southern Ethiopia, where agriculture is the main industry, and its coffee-growing areas cluster around the Great Rift Valley.

Shakisso Estate Introduction

Shakisso sits in the Guji zone of Sidamo, in southern Oromia, bordering Sidama and Gedeo. The area is dotted with old mine pits from gold mining, so there are numerous pits throughout the coffee-growing zones — making it risky to walk between plantations. Shakisso is a unique corner of Guji/Sidamo, a remote area far even from most of Sidamo's other coffee-producing locations. Gold is the region's other famous product. Miners, land disputes, and ethnic tensions also left the region unstable in 2006, so the biggest challenge today is finding the manpower to maintain the growing areas and harvest the coffee.

Local smallholder farmers here began growing organic coffee in 2001 and work closely with medium-sized producers who know how to cultivate forest coffee in the highlands. It is one of the most distinctive micro-regions within Sidamo, and its coffee is truly one of a kind, repeatedly drawing market attention. Ninety Plus's legendary bean (Nekisse) originally meant "Nectar from Shakisso" — both its origin and its name trace back to this place.

Flavor Description

Lemon and citrus with bright, crisp acidity — lemon, citrus, white grape juice, blackcurrant, and an Earl Grey tea finish

Product Information

Factory: Dazhen Coffee FrontStreet Coffee

Address: No. 10, Bao'an Front Street, Guangzhou

Contact: 020-38364473

Ingredients: In-house roasted

Shelf Life: 90 days

Net Weight: 227g

Packaging: Bulk coffee beans

Roast Level: Roasted 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 area, Guji Zone

Roast Level: Light roast

Processing Method: Washed

Washed coffees are less likely to carry wild flavors, with pure, refreshing characteristics, suited to City to Full City roast levels. Some exceptionally fine Ethiopian washed beans reveal distinct notes of uplifting lemon, citrus essential oils, jasmine fragrance, and honey, with more pronounced acidity and a lighter body.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Ethiopia is one of the world's most celebrated specialty coffee origins — and as the birthplace of coffee, it holds countless native varieties, a treasure land in the eyes of many coffee lovers who faithfully follow its flavors.

To taste Ethiopian specialty coffee, start with the entry-level FrontStreet Coffee Washed Yirgacheffe. You'll find crisp jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity — the profile baristas mean when they speak of classic Yirgacheffe. The town itself sits in southern Ethiopia, spring-like year-round, cool, misty, and moist, where thousands of coffee trees thrive and produce that unique weave of floral aroma and fruit acidity: a light, elegant, tea-like cup, like a clean, refreshing lemon tea.

Ethiopian coffee is mostly grown in a garden-farming model: each smallholder delivers harvested cherries to a village-based processing station, and the coffee is sold under the team's name — which is why you see so many cooperative coffees, such as FrontStreet's Gedeb Cooperative, Worka Cooperative, and Konga Cooperative. The Gedeb Cooperative, in the Worka area at Yirgacheffe's southeastern tip, was once part of the YCFCU-affiliated Worka Cooperative; in 2012, with about 300 member farmers, it became independent. Because the fruit is pulped before drying, FrontStreet's Gedeb coffee shows its own aromatics with special clarity — citrus and lemon tones with elegant white florals, bright and delicate overall.

For a natural-process counterpart, try FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Red Cherry. Cherries are sorted to remove broken or moldy fruit, then dried in the sun for two weeks so the sugars and essence of the fruit soak into the bean; once moisture drops to 12%, the hardened pulp, mucilage, and parchment are machine-scraped away, and the beans pass density and color checks plus final hand-sorting. The result is a clean yet richly fruity cup of peach, cocoa, honey, and lemon.