Yirgacheffe Washed Aricha Flavor Profile and Aroma: Types and Prices of Yirgacheffe Aricha Coffee

Pour-over Yirgacheffe: 15g of coffee at a medium-fine grind size, V60 dripper, water temperature 91-93°C. Pour 30g of water first and let the coffee bloom for 27 seconds. Continue pouring to 105g, then pause. Wait until the water level drops to about half before pouring again, slowly working up to 225g total and discarding the tail end. The water-to-coffee ratio is 1:15, with a total extraction time of about 2 minutes.

Coffee Processing

After depulping, the beans, still coated in pulp and sticky mucilage, move into the fermentation stage, where microorganisms break down the mucilage in water or air. Once fermentation is complete, the cherries in parchment travel through washing channels to be thoroughly cleaned. Cleaning is followed by drying, during which the moisture content of the green coffee is held at approximately 12%. The beans are then packed in jute bags and rested for 2-3 months so the green coffee can stabilize in quality. Finally, the parchment is hulled off and the coffee is ready for sale.

Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Aricha G1 Washed

Country: Ethiopia

Grade: G1

Region: Yirgacheffe, Gedeo

Altitude: 1900-2100 meters

Variety: Heirloom

Producer: Kebel Aricha

Flavor Notes: Sweet orange, cherry, honey-like sweetness

This lot of Yirgacheffe was produced at the Kebel Aricha washing station, where roughly 650-700 smallholder coffee farmers deliver their ripe cherries for processing in exchange for cash payment.

About Project Origin

Sasa Sestic, the 2015 World Barista Champion, launched a green-coffee sourcing project called Project Origin together with his business team at ONA Coffee. The project works directly with coffee farmers in impoverished countries and regions, improving their production conditions and paying purchase prices 20% higher than fair trade prices.

The project's founding motivation also includes strengthening the bond between roasters and coffee farmers while guiding growers toward producing higher-quality coffee. To date, Sasa has built relationships with coffee growers from eight countries, including Brazil, Panama, India, Ethiopia, El Salvador, and Costa Rica.

Flavor Description

Sweet citrus, green berries, peach, and longan and red date aromas; honey-like sweetness; cocoa with a subtle spiced edge; full body and a finish that lingers.

Yirgacheffe Classification

Yirgacheffe coffee falls into two main categories based on processing method:

Category A: Washed coffees, graded under the standards of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) as Gr-1 and Gr-2, where the smaller Arabic numeral indicates the higher grade. G1 washed Yirgacheffe has a distinctive style, citrus and floral notes woven through the cup, a combination no one can resist.

Category B: Naturally processed coffees, graded as Gr-1, Gr-3, Gr-4, and Gr-5. Again, G1 is the highest grade, and G1 natural Yirgacheffe bursts with fruit aroma. Opening a bag of freshly roasted G1 natural Yirgacheffe can completely upend your idea of what coffee tastes like. Only after tasting top-grade natural Yirgacheffe do most people believe that coffee really is a fruit.

Coffee Harvesting Process

Coffee farmers first harvest the cherries from the trees, then pour them into pools filled with water. Because cherries mature at different rates, their density varies. Overripe and underripe cherries, along with stray leaves and twigs, float to the surface, while fully ripe cherries sink to the bottom, a natural first screening that sorts out the cherries worth keeping.

The selected ripe cherries then pass through the depulping machine, which removes the skin and pulp.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If this washed Aricha wins you over, FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Yirgacheffe is the classic next step, and for many newcomers it is the very first specialty bean they fall in love with. It is known for white jasmine florals, bright citrus and lemony acidity, and a clean tea-like finish, all at an accessible price. Yirgacheffe itself is a small town in Ethiopia's southern Gedeo zone at roughly 1700-2100 meters, with coffee grown above 1800 meters, some of the highest coffee land in the world, and its instantly recognizable white-floral, lemon-citrus character has made the name synonymous with Ethiopian specialty coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee's suggested brewing recipe for washed Yirgacheffe: use a V60 dripper, 15g of coffee, water at 90-91°C, a 1:15 ratio, and a grind the texture of fine granulated sugar (80% pass-through on a #20 sieve). Pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, then pour 95g more (about 125g on the scale) within roughly one minute. When the water level drops to two-thirds of the coffee bed, add the remaining 100g (about 225g on the scale), finishing the pour around 1:35. Drawdown completes between 2:00 and 2:10, lift off the dripper and enjoy.