What Yirgacheffe Washed Eriga Coffee Brands Are There & Yirgacheffe Coffee Brewing Steps

Coffee Processing

Selected mature coffee cherries next go into the depulper to remove the skin and pulp.

Hand-poured Yirgacheffe. 15g of coffee, ground to a medium-fine consistency (Fuji ghost tooth grinder setting 3.5), V60 dripper, water temperature 91-93°C. First pour 30g of water for a 27-second bloom, then pour to 105g and pause. Wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to halfway before continuing the pour. Slowly pour until reaching 225g total, discarding the tail end. Water-to-coffee ratio of 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Next, the beans with their remaining pulp and mucilage enter the fermentation stage (fermenting with microorganisms in water or from the air). Once fermentation is complete, the parchment-covered beans go into washing channels to be thoroughly cleaned. After cleaning comes drying, where the beans' moisture content is kept at around 12% as much as possible. They are then packed in jute bags and left to rest for about 2-3 months so the green beans stabilize in quality. Finally the parchment is removed, and they are 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 batch of Yirgacheffe was produced at the Kebel Aricha processing station, where about 650-700 small-scale coffee farmers from the surrounding area deliver their ripe cherries for processing in exchange for cash.

About Project Origin

Sasa Sestic, the 2015 World Barista Champion, started a green bean sourcing project called Project Origin three years ago with his business team at ONA Coffee. The project works directly with coffee growers in poor countries and regions to improve their production conditions, and offers them purchase prices 20% higher than fair trade prices.

The project's original intent also includes strengthening the connection between roasters and coffee farmers, and guiding farmers to cultivate high-quality beans. To date, Sasa has built relationships with coffee growers in eight countries, including Brazil, Panama, India, Ethiopia, El Salvador, and Costa Rica.

Flavor Description

Sweet orange notes, green berries, peach, longan and red dates aroma, honey sweetness, cocoa with subtle spice notes, full body with persistent aftertaste.

Yirgacheffe Classification

Yirgacheffe is divided into two main categories by processing method:

Category A: Washed processing, graded by standards set by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and divided into Grade 1 and Grade 2, where smaller Arabic numerals indicate higher grades. G1 Yirgacheffe has a distinctive style, with citrus and floral notes blended into the coffee liquid that people find irresistible.

Category B: Natural processing, graded into Grade 1, Grade 3, Grade 4, and Grade 5. Here too the highest grade, G1 natural Yirgacheffe, has rich fruit aromas. Opening a bag of freshly roasted G1 natural Yirgacheffe can overturn people's original understanding of coffee; only those who have tasted the highest-grade natural Yirgacheffe will believe that coffee is a fruit.

Harvesting Process

Happy coffee farmers first pick coffee cherries from the trees, then pour them into pools filled with water. Because cherries of different maturity have different densities, overripe and unripe cherries, along with some leaves and branches, float to the surface, while sufficiently ripe cherries sink to the bottom. This method is used to select the cherries that pass the first screening stage.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

For the classic Ethiopian profile, FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe daily bean is the ideal starting point: known for white jasmine florals, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like body, at an affordable price that has made it many drinkers' first specialty bean. Yirgacheffe is a small town in the Sidamo zone of southern Ethiopia at roughly 1,700-2,100 meters, its coffee trees planted above 1,800 meters, making it one of the world's highest growing regions; its distinctive white florals and lemon-citrus acidity turned the name into a byword for Ethiopian specialty coffee. In 2010, because the name had grown so famous, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange finally separated it from the Sidamo region.

Within the town there are many small areas and villages, and among them are seasoned cooperatives whose processing lifts the flavor further — most notably FrontStreet's washed Gudingding cooperative, in the Woka area at the southeastern end of Yirgacheffe. It began as part of the Woka cooperative under the YCFCU union, and as demand for traceability grew it became a single origin sought out by coffee hunters worldwide; it follows traditional washed processing, carrying no traditional bitterness, with fresh, bright citrus and lemon acidity and jasmine fragrance. FrontStreet's natural Red Cherry instead uses only fully ripe all-red cherries, dried on raised beds and turned every 2-3 hours in the first days to prevent uneven heat and over-fermentation; after three to five weeks of drying, the outer fruit is machine-scraped. Because the cherry dries with the fruit intact, it keeps the classic Yirgacheffe character while gaining a natural tropical fruit aroma — citrus-like acidity, berry-juice body, honey sweetness, and a creamy smoothness.

For brewing, FrontStreet suggests a V60 at 90-91°C, 15g of coffee at a 1:15 ratio, and a grind of EK43s setting 10 / fine sugar (80% through a #20 sieve). Pour in three stages: a 30g bloom for 30 seconds; a second pour of 95g (reading about 125g on the scale), finishing in about one minute; then, when the water drops to two-thirds of the bed, the remaining 100g (about 225g on the scale), finishing in roughly 1 minute 35 seconds. Dripping completes at 2:00-2:10, then you remove the dripper and the brew is done.