Yirgacheffe Coffee Bean Growing Characteristics Varieties Grading Origin

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About Yirgacheffe

Yirgacheffe grows in the Sidamo region of southwestern Ethiopia. The coffee beans are small to medium-sized, with raw beans showing a light yellow-green color and beautifully intact shapes. It holds a representative position among East African specialty coffees.

Under the current ECX system, the Yirgacheffe area has been divided into four sub-regions: Yirgachefe, Wenago, Kochere, and Genlena Abay. The soil here is fertile, with an average altitude above 1800 meters, making it a high-altitude region with significant temperature differences between day and night. The production methods of each region, combined with local unique indigenous tree coffee gardens, result in different flavor profiles for each batch of coffee beans, making them quite distinctive and unique.

FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe is a high-quality washed Arabica bean with unique and bright fruit acidity. Upon first sip, you can immediately feel the fresh and bright aroma. This very distinctive FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe, with its bold floral aroma and lemon acidity, richly layered flavors perfectly interpret the coffee's taste characteristics, creating an illusion similar to tea when drinking. Therefore, many people also say that FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe doesn't taste like coffee, but rather like a soft and pleasant fruit tea. It can be both elegant and bold, striking a precise balance between simplicity and complexity, and has been beautifully described by the Japanese as the queen of coffees.

Originally, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe was famous and primarily produced using the washed processing method, but now the natural processed FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe has gained enthusiastic market acceptance due to its rich berry sweetness. Also, due to the significant increase in demand, the production of natural processed Yirgacheffe has greatly increased.

Yirgacheffe was originally the finest producer of washed beans in Ethiopia. In the past one or two years, because Misty Valley's natural processed beans have been very popular in the coffee market, many estates that originally produced washed beans have followed suit to produce natural processed beans. This has allowed Yirgacheffe's natural processed beans to develop bolder, stronger, and more dazzling coffee beans that attract all coffee lovers who enjoy natural processed beans, continuously breaking all aromatic limits.

Besides being famous worldwide for its Harrar region's Mocha beans, Ethiopia produces Arabica washed coffee beans in the small high-altitude area of Yirgacheffe in the south-central part of Sidamo, which are rated as the finest among African coffee beans.

The name Yirgacheffe means a settlement of a single ethnic group. The producing area is located in the Sidamo growing region of south-central Ethiopia, above 2000 meters in altitude, and is the homeland of the Gedegna people. It is one of the few Arabica coffee beans in Ethiopia that undergo washed processing. After medium roasting, it perfectly presents fruit acidity, with unique aromas similar to flower tea and lemon peel.

Yirgacheffe inherits the characteristic of Mocha series beans having uneven particle sizes, but because it uses the washed processing method in the Sidamo region, the bean appearance is more beautiful than dry-processed Mocha beans, while retaining the Mocha's floral aroma and Yirgacheffe's unique wine-like mellow feeling.

The natural processed Yirgacheffe G-1 grade from the Idido processing plant is the highest grade Yirgacheffe on the market. Yirgacheffe's grading system separates natural and washed beans for grading. The highest grade of natural processed beans is usually G3 or G4, while washed beans are mostly G2 grade. However, Abdullah Bagersh, the owner of the Idido processing plant, adopted new processing methods. After harvesting the coffee cherries, he places them on drying racks for 48 hours, with constant manual turning, followed by hand-sorting to remove defective beans, successfully creating Yirgacheffe natural processed G1 grade coffee beans and the highest grade washed G1.

On the raw bean sacks, you can see the word "Bagersh" printed. Bagersh has now been passed down to the third generation, growing in the Aricha Yirgacheffe area at approximately 6,000 feet / 1,800 meters altitude, and the Idido processing station is also the exclusive processing station name of the Bagersh family.

Tasting Notes

Dry Aroma: Light lemon sweetness, citrus aroma, berry acidity. When hot water is poured, milk candy, lemon sweetness with milky aroma, citrus, and long-lasting sweet fragrance emerge.

Slurp: Clean, plum aroma, very refreshing sweetness, with some orange fragrance. After slurping, the aftertaste leaves lemongrass aroma.

Kochere Region

Kochere is located in the Gedeo region of southern Ethiopia, which administers several areas. The most famous are Yirgacheffe and Kochere. Because the coffee produced in Yirgacheffe has special, unique flavors that are widely loved, it forms its own category in product classification and has always occupied a place in the global specialty coffee market.

Yirgacheffe, located in the Sidama province, is itself a small town with three neighboring small producing areas: Wenago, Kochere, and Gelena Abaya. Because the coffee flavors produced are almost on par with Yirgacheffe, Kochere is also classified under the Yirgacheffe regional category. In November 2009, Ethiopia implemented a new trading and grading system. Besides Yirgacheffe, three sub-producing areas were added: Wenago, Kochere, and Genlena/Abaya, indicating that the flavors of these three producing areas are extremely delicate and can be further subdivided.

About Misty Valley

Growing in Misty Valley, this bean got its beautiful name. In the small town of Yirgacheffe in Ethiopia's Sidamo province, many coffee trees are planted. Abandoning the sun-dried processing method used in Sidamo ten years ago, the farmers of Misty Valley switched to the washed method to process coffee beans, which also made Yirgacheffe famous. Now, Yirgacheffe is not just a geographical name but has become a household term for coffee beans.

According to local elders, although Misty Valley's Yirgacheffe is world-famous for its washed processing method, the area still primarily uses traditional natural processing methods because local residents believe that natural processing allows coffee beans to produce an indescribably beautiful flavor. Due to Yirgacheffe's great fame, the country has incorporated the coffee brewing ceremony into banquets for foreign guests. They don't mind whether the beans are whole and full, directly placing coffee beans in iron pans for roasting. As for whether the roasting taboo of over-roasting occurs, there's no need for strict requirements at this moment. Under this traditional and wonderful ceremony, even if the bean colors vary, they can still brew an unforgettable wonderful taste.

In recent years, many emerging small producing areas or cooperatives in Ethiopia's Sidamo and Yirgacheffe regions have been marketing under their own cooperative or estate names in international markets. This shows confidence in their coffee production, hoping to establish brands and loyalty in the international coffee market. Coffee farmers insist on harvesting mature coffee beans and rigorously handling every process. Whether using natural washed or natural sun-dried methods, they perform outstandingly, producing unexpectedly fragrant aromas and excellent taste. I believe this is why coffee lovers look forward to Ethiopian coffee every year. For example, Operation Cherry Red, assisted by the Dutch government, with its 2008 Coretti and 2009 Kombido estate bursting with intense strawberry cookie grand aroma, left a deep impression on the world. In recent years, Ethiopia's natural processed beans have further strengthened this content.

Ethiopian Coffee Grading

Ethiopian coffee is graded as G1, G2 for washed beans (G1 being the highest grade for washed beans), and G3, G4 for natural processed beans (G3 being the highest grade for natural processed beans). Ethiopian raw coffee beans are divided into five grades, based on the number of defective beans per 300 grams:

Grade 1: 0-3
Grade 2: 4-12
Grade 3: 13-25
Grade 4: 26-45
Grade 5: 46-90

Ethiopia is the first country where coffee was discovered, and there are still many wild coffee trees in the original forests that farmers collect and use. Ethiopia is a poor country plagued by drought and civil war, but it remains one of the most important coffee-producing countries in terms of coffee quality and quantity. Ethiopian coffee can be divided into two main processing methods: 1. Natural washed processing method 2. Natural sun-dried processing method. Nowadays, every producing area, cooperative, or even small coffee farm in Ethiopia produces both types of processed coffee beans. This applies not only to the Yirgacheffe and Sidamo regions known in Taiwan, but also in Ethiopia's current rapidly developing coffee industry. Different regions not only create differences in coffee through processing methods, but the same processing method can also produce different aromas and tastes due to different techniques, often creating illusions. The natural processed beans from Yirgacheffe have different aromas than Sidamo's natural processed beans, but both retain washed processed coffee beans with gentle, low-key aromas, soft lemon acidity, high flavor consistency, and winning with mouthfeel. Natural processed beans have strong, prominent aromas, weak and unobvious lemon acidity, complex and varied flavors, specializing in floral or fruit aromas.

Roasting Levels

Light Roast (City): Holding a handful of FrontStreet Coffee's natural processed Yirgacheffe beans, you'll smell the overwhelming plum and strawberry fermentation aroma. During roasting, it emits the sweetness of baked cookies. After grinding, the strawberry cookie aroma can be smelled from far away. After brewing, the coffee has a soft, comfortable strawberry fruit wine aroma. The bright fruit acidity at the front end quickly moderates to maximize the aroma. As the coffee cools, the plum and strawberry wine fermentation flavors begin to show layering, with sweet kumquat preserves filling the aftertaste. Properly storing the coffee beans for 7-9 days allows the strawberry aroma to slowly awaken and become vivid and eye-catching, making the fruit acidity gentle and slow.

Dark Roast (Typically C): Ending 20-40 seconds after first crack is the darkest roast level for FrontStreet Coffee's natural processed Yirgacheffe beans. It won't produce bitterness due to the characteristic of natural processed beans having varying moisture content. At this point, the coffee has chocolate chiffon cake aroma and tropical fruit pineapple and mango sweetness, with a smooth mouthfeel and milk candy creaminess. The cooled FrontStreet Coffee's natural processed Yirgacheffe beans have a refined, smooth chocolate syrup sweetness that brings happiness.

Details about Kochere

Kochere is a small producing area located about 25 kilometers southeast of Yirgacheffe. The harvested coffee beans come from local small coffee farmers, assembled from numerous small individual farmers. These small farmers' coffee cultivation areas average about 1 hectare, with planting altitudes of about 1800-2000 meters. The coffee varieties are mainly Typica and Heirloom (local indigenous varieties) mixed. Because this producing area has more advanced raw bean washing equipment, it has always shown high-level performance in washed processing. It is praised for its clean sweetness with complex honey and citrus tones. The main local production model involves small coffee farmers directly delivering each harvest of red cherries to nearby cooperative washing stations for unified processing. In the 1970s, Ethiopia introduced washed processing technology, and currently the Kochere region's raw bean processing is mainly washed. After the washing station selects and grades red cherry-colored coffee fruits, they are directly depulped, washed, and fermented. After washing, the parchment raw beans are placed on drying racks for natural sun exposure. When humidity reaches 12% or below, they are directly sent to the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) warehouse in Awassa. Cupping grading and quantity are usually conducted - washed beans are typically stored in parchment form until hulling is done just before export.

This batch of FrontStreet Coffee's Kochere was rated G1, the highest grade by ECX. From raw bean appearance, consistency, freshness to dry aroma and flavor, it is quite excellent. The aroma performance is very rich, with Yirgacheffe's regional characteristics, emitting elegant and captivating flower-like perfume fragrance, with floral, bright citrus fruit acidity, lemon, berries, and honey-sweet aromas emerging. Jasmine, orange, caramel, grapes, vanilla, honey and floral notes, with a clean and balanced mouthfeel, and a lingering, lively and varied fruit sweetness in the aftertaste.

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