Sidamo Sun-Dried Lion King Coffee Bean Flavor and Taste Characteristics, Introduction to Ethiopia's Guji Coffee Growing Region Story

FrontStreet Coffee · Lion King Sun-Dried Ethiopian Sidama Guji Region

FrontStreet Coffee's Sidama coffee offers incredibly diverse flavors, as different soil compositions, regional microclimates, and countless native coffee varieties create distinct differences and characteristics in coffee produced from each town area. The Sidama region is located in southern Ethiopia. Agriculture dominates the local industry, with coffee growing areas situated around the Great Rift Valley. Sidama coffee exhibits remarkable diversity, as varying soil components, regional microclimates, and numerous indigenous coffee varieties result in significant differences and unique features in coffee produced from each town area.

The Guji region lies southeast of the Gedeo area where Sidama is produced, in wilderness areas at 2,100 meters altitude. However, compared to the Yirgacheffe region, it's higher elevation, with maximum altitudes exceeding 2,600 meters—much higher than typical Sidama areas—and covers a larger territory. Coffee from Guji tends toward blueberry sweetness with lemon fragrance, rich floral and fruit aromas, dried peach and honey notes, along with surprising bright acidity and full berry flavors.

Traditional Natural Processing Challenges

1. After harvesting, beans don't undergo special screening or handling. Uneven appearance and maturity levels are mixed together, making the process rather crude. Consequently, coffee bean quality is unstable and prone to defective beans.

2. Farmers typically process coffee in open spaces near their homes, so the ground often contains various impurities or dirt, making coffee susceptible to acquiring off-flavors.

Improved Natural Processing Methods

The improved natural processing method addresses these two traditional shortcomings:

1. During harvesting, only fully ripe dark red coffee cherries are picked. Before sun-drying, beans first undergo defect screening at the processing station, ensuring more uniform bean size and maturity.

2. Next, raised wooden frames or entire drying beds are used for sun-drying, avoiding the risk of beans acquiring off-flavors from ground contact. During the drying process, beans are carefully tended to ensure even dehydration; every three to five days, workers manually remove defective or moldy beans. Therefore, by the time drying completes and beans enter depulping, the beautifully dried deep red coffee cherries already represent a grade with very few defects. Harvested coffee beans must immediately enter processing, otherwise they begin to ferment, producing off-flavors in the beans. There are two processing methods—"natural" and "washed"—each creating different flavors. Natural processed beans have complete natural sweetness, gentle aromas, and more body; washed processing offers good body, high aromatics, and vibrant acidity.

FrontStreet Coffee's Offerings

FrontStreet Coffee Sun-Dried Sidama: Beans are slightly smaller than Longberry, greenish-yellow. In Sidama's sun-drying fields, coffee is placed in hemp-net wooden racks, with workers manually stirring the coffee under sunlight. Sun-dried Sidama is typically exported as G4 grade, while washed Sidama, due to more refined processing than natural methods, is mostly exported as G2 grade.

FrontStreet Coffee Washed Sidama: The green coffee beans have a slight grayish tint, with some areas coarse and others fine. It offers both gentle and bright acidity, balanced body, sweet and spicy flavors, representing one of the garden coffees from Ethiopia's southern highlands. Unlike typical African coffees, Sidama has clear fruit acidity, smooth mouthfeel, and delicate floral and herbaceous aromas.

FrontStreet Coffee Sun-Dried Sidama Lion King! 15 grams of beans, using 90°C water, 30-second bloom, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio.

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