Yirgacheffe Washed Aricha Pour-Over Data | How to Brew Yirgacheffe Washed Aricha Coffee

Pour-Over Yirgacheffe Brewing Guide

Pour-over Yirgacheffe: 15g of coffee, medium-fine grind (Fuji Ghost Tooth burr, setting 3.5), V60 dripper, water at 91-93°C. Pour 30g of water and bloom for 27 seconds. Pour to 105g and stop; once the water level in the bed drops halfway, continue pouring slowly to 225g total and discard the tail end. Ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Processing: Washed

It starts with the farmers picking ripe cherries and tipping them into water-filled pools. Ripeness changes a cherry's density: overripe and underripe cherries—along with stray leaves and twigs—float, while fully ripe cherries sink. The floaters are skimmed off, completing the first screening.

The selected cherries then go into the depulper to strip away skin and pulp.

Next, the beans still coated with mucilage ferment—either submerged in water or exposed to the air—so microbes break the mucilage down. After fermentation, the parchment-covered beans move through washing channels for a thorough rinse. Then comes drying: the green beans' moisture is held as close to 12% as possible before they are packed into jute bags and rested for about 2-3 months of conditioning to stabilize quality. Finally the parchment is milled off, and the coffee is ready for sale.

Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Aricha G1 Washed

Country: Ethiopia

Grade: G1

Region: Yirgacheffe, Gediyo

Altitude: 1900-2100 meters

Variety: Heirloom

Producer: Kebel Aricha

Flavor: sweet orange, cherry, honey sweetness

This lot comes from the Kebel Aricha processing station, where roughly 650-700 smallholder farmers from the surrounding area deliver ripe cherries for processing and immediate cash payment.

About Project Origin

Sasa Sestic, the 2015 World Barista Champion, launched a green-bean sourcing project called Project Origin three years ago together with his team at ONA Coffee. It works directly with farmers in poor growing regions, improving their production conditions and paying 20% above fair-trade prices.

The project also aims to tighten the bond between roasters and farmers and guide cultivation toward higher quality. So far, Sasa has built relationships with growers in eight countries, including Brazil, Panama, India, Ethiopia, El Salvador, and Costa Rica.

Flavor Description

Sweet orange citrus, green berries, peach, longan and red date aroma, honey sweetness, cocoa with subtle spice, a full body, and a long-lasting finish.

Yirgacheffe by Processing Method

Yirgacheffe splits into two families:

Category A is washed, graded under Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) standards as Gr-1 and Gr-2, with the smaller number the higher grade. G1 washed Yirgacheffe has a distinctive style—citrus and floral notes fused in the liquid, a flavor everyone loves.

Category B is natural process, graded Gr-1, Gr-3, Gr-4, Gr-5. Top-grade G1 natural Yirgacheffe brims with fruit aroma: open a bag of freshly roasted G1 natural and it upends everything you thought coffee was—only those who have tasted it believe coffee is a fruit.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

New to Yirgacheffe? Start with FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe everyday bean—white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like finish at an accessible price. Brew it V60 style: 15g of coffee at 1:15, water at 90-91°C, an EK43s grind of setting 10 (fine-sugar, 80% pass-through on a #20 sieve), a 30-second 30g bloom, then pours to 125g and 225g, finishing in about 2 minutes 10 seconds.

Then compare it with the washed Guodingding cooperative lot from the Worka area—same traditional washed clarity, no conventional bitterness, just citrus, lemon, and jasmine lifted another level—and the natural-process Red Cherry, whose fully ripe sun-dried cherries add tropical fruit, berry juice, honeyed sweetness, and a creamy texture to the classic Yirgacheffe profile.