Sidamo Natural Guji Coffee Flavor Profile & Characteristics

About Shakisso Coffee

Shakisso, in the Guji zone of the Oromia region, borders Sidama and Gedeo to the south. The area contains numerous mining pits originally dug for gold extraction, which leaves the coffee growing region riddled with holes and makes walking through the cultivation areas particularly dangerous. Shakisso stands out as a distinctive growing region within Guji and Sidamo, remote even by Sidamo standards, with gold mining as another notable local product. Factors such as miners, land disputes, and ethnic tensions contributed to regional instability in 2006. As a result, the area now faces its greatest challenge: the manpower needed to maintain the plantations and harvest the coffee. Local small-scale farmers began cultivating organic coffee here in 2001, working closely with medium-sized producers who have expertise in growing forest coffee at high altitude.

Flavor Profile

Flavor notes: Lemon, mango, blueberry, wine-like aroma

Brewing Instructions

Pour-over Sidamo: 15g of coffee, ground to a medium-fine consistency (Fuji Royal grinder setting 3.5), using a V60 dripper with water temperature between 91-93°C. First pour 30g of water and let it bloom for 27 seconds. Continue pouring to 105g, then pause until the water level drops halfway in the coffee bed. Slowly continue pouring until reaching 225g total. Avoid the tail end of the extraction. Water-to-coffee ratio: 1:15. Total extraction time: 2:00.

Coffee Details

Ethiopian Sidamo Shakisso Natural

Country: Ethiopia

Region: Shakisso, Guji Zone

Altitude: 1800-2000 meters

Processing Method: Natural

Manufacturer: FrontStreet Coffee | Ingredients: In-house roasted | Shelf life: 90 days | Net weight: 227g | Packaging: Bulk | Taste: Mellow and aromatic | Bean state: Roasted coffee beans | Sugar content: Sugar-free | Origin: Ethiopia | Coffee type: Other | Roast level: Light roast

Shakisso coffee is remarkably distinctive, and its beans consistently capture market attention. The legendary Ninety Plus bean "Nekisse" derives its name from "Nectar from Shakisso," with both its origin and its name paying homage to the region.

Variety: Local Heirloom

Producer: Local small-scale farmers

Sidamo coffee shows incredibly diverse flavor profiles because of varying soil composition, regional microclimates, and countless native coffee varieties, which produce distinct differences in the coffee from each town and area. The Sidamo region lies in southern Ethiopia, where agriculture dominates the local economy. The coffee cultivation areas are situated around the Great Rift Valley.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Ethiopia is a world-renowned specialty coffee origin and the birthplace of coffee, home to countless native varieties. It is treasured by coffee lovers because they can follow its flavors faithfully. To taste the specialty profile of Ethiopia, FrontStreet Coffee suggests beginning with the entry-level FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe, which offers clear jasmine fragrance and bright citrus acidity. Yirgacheffe is a small town in southern Ethiopia with a spring-like climate all year, wrapped in mist, cool and humid, where thousands of coffee trees thrive and produce the region's characteristic interwoven floral and fruit acidity, a light, elegant cup with a tea-like body that drinks like clean, refreshing lemon tea.

Ethiopian coffee mostly follows a garden-plot model, in which each smallholder delivers harvested cherries to a village-level processing station and the coffee is sold under the production team's name, which is why there are so many cooperatives of different sizes. FrontStreet Coffee's Gudingding Cooperative sits in the Worka district at the south-eastern end of Yirgacheffe and began as part of the Worka cooperative under the Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU). As demand for traceability grew, independent single-origin lots were identified one by one by coffee hunters around the world, and in 2012 Gudingding, with about 300 member farmers, became a cooperative in its own right. Because the pulp is removed before drying, its inherent aroma comes through more clearly, showing citrus and lemon tones and an elegant white floral note, bright and delicate overall. The FrontStreet Sun-Dried Red Cherry takes the opposite route: after removing damaged or moldy fruit, the cherries dry in the sun for two weeks until the pulp sugars and essence have seeped into the bean and moisture has fallen to 12%. The hardened pulp, mucilage, and parchment are then scraped away, and the beans pass density and color checks before workers remove any remaining defects by eye. The result is a clean, refined bean with a rich, appealing fruit aroma and notes of peach, cocoa, honey, and lemon.

For a bigger, more complex cup, FrontStreet Coffee's Sun-Dried Huakui comes from the Hambella area of Guji, Sidama, on a 200-hectare farm using traditional natural processing. To prevent mold or earthy taints, workers dry the ripe cherries on raised beds for 21 days, turning them constantly for even drying and removing defective or moldy beans by hand every three to five days. Once the skin is dry and hard it is removed by a huller, and the green beans are sorted once more. Because the fruit dries with the skin and pulp, a medium-light roast shows a light fermented wine aroma, floral notes, citrus, and mango, with a much richer, more complex cup, honey sweetness, a cocoa note with a little spice, a full body, and a lasting finish. Also from Sidama, the FrontStreet Hamasho Natural is built mainly on the JARC-released 74 series of disease-resistant varieties; the 74158 in particular has smaller beans and prominent floral and fruit aromas, with a perfumed lemon, strawberry, and starfruit sweetness on the nose and clear strawberry, starfruit, and green grape sweetness on entry, before a light floral note emerges. Finally, the FrontStreet Kafa Forest coffee, unlike the garden-plot model, represents wild coffee, with trees growing at 1400-2100 meters under shade. A medium-light roast brings out a clear white floral note after grinding, bright lemon acidity on entry, sweet orange and bergamot flavors, and a finish with a hint of melon and nut, with a green-tea-like body.