Yirgacheffe Coffee Characteristics & Flavor Profile: Pour-Over Yirgacheffe Taste Description

FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe is most renowned for its unique and distinct fruit sweetness and acidity. Upon first sip, delightful citrus and lemon flavors emerge, followed by jasmine fragrance that fills the entire palate. "Not quite like coffee, but more like fruit tea" is how many describe FrontStreet Coffee's light to medium roast Yirgacheffe.

FrontStreet Coffee's bean shelf features a high-value daily coffee series, carefully selecting 7 excellent classic coffee producing regions, covering multiple representative regions, varieties, and natural processing methods. This includes FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopian Washed Yirgacheffe, FrontStreet Coffee's Guatemalan Washed Huehuetenango, FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian Washed Huila, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian Pulped Natural Cerrado, FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rican Washed Tarrazú, FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Wet-Hulled Mandheling, and FrontStreet Coffee's Chinese Yunnan Washed Baoshan. Among these, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe represents the hallmark of floral and fruit flavors. FrontStreet Coffee believes that the exquisite aroma of FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe is inseparable from the region's unique topographical advantages and breakthrough traditional washed processing methods.

Yirgacheffe Region

Yirgacheffe town is located in the south-central part of Ethiopia, with an altitude of over 2,000 meters, making it one of Ethiopia's highest altitude producing regions. Coffee trees are mostly planted in farmers' own backyards or mixed with other crops in farmland. Each household's production is limited, making it typical pastoral coffee. These mountain villages are shrouded in mist, with spring-like weather year-round. Summers bring gentle breezes—cool but not hot, rainy but not humid—while winters avoid frost damage, making it particularly suitable for Arabica coffee growth. The high altitude creates significant day-night temperature differences, causing coffee trees to grow slowly and fruits to take longer to mature, consequently storing more aromatic substances. The harvest season is therefore relatively late, typically from October to January of the following year. During this time, busy farmers can be seen harvesting coffee cherries in the mountains and their home gardens, then sending them to village cooperatives for unified processing.

We often hear about Kochere, Misty Valley, and Gedeb, which are all very well-known micro-regions within the Yirgacheffe coffee producing area. They all have excellent cooperative production teams, and their produced coffees are highly distinctive. The Worka producing region, located in the southeastern part of Yirgacheffe, has another mature production team—the "Goddingding Cooperative"—with about 300 member farmers. It was established separately in 2012 because its Yirgacheffe flavor profile is particularly bright and uplifting. Many small farmers were originally members of the Worka cooperative, so their coffee production skills are unquestionable. FrontStreet Coffee's Goddingding Cooperative coffee uses traditional washed processing.

Processing Evolution

Early Yirgacheffe, like other Ethiopian coffee regions, used the most ancient natural processing method. It wasn't until 1972 that Ethiopia introduced Central and South American washed processing technology to improve coffee bean quality. This move amplified the citrus and lemon aromas inherent in Yirgacheffe coffee beans, making the taste fresher and brighter. Since then, Yirgacheffe has leaped to become one of the world's representatives of specialty coffee.

Washed Processing Method

1. First, coffee farmers pour all harvested coffee cherries into water. This way, defective coffee beans will float to the surface, while those that sink to the bottom are quality-assured coffee cherries. This operation significantly reduces the time wasted in individual selection.

2. Place the screened coffee cherries into a pulping machine to remove the outer skin and pulp. After removing these, a layer of mucilage remains on the surface of the coffee cherries, so large amounts of clean water are needed to thoroughly wash away the sticky substances from the coffee cherry surface.

3. Next, fermentation is used to completely remove the mucilage. This process takes about 18 hours, but after fermentation is complete, fermentation bacteria adhere to the coffee cherry surface, requiring another thorough washing with large amounts of clean water. The entire process consumes significant fresh water resources.

4. Finally, the cleaned coffee beans are taken outdoors and spread on drying beds to air dry. Some more developed regions send them to processing plants to use mechanical drying, reducing the coffee moisture content to about 11%.

Roasting Philosophy

For many bitter coffees, the greatest characteristic of FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe is its lack of obvious bitterness, making it more easily acceptable. Coffee becomes bitter mainly because roasters roast coffee beans deeply, with the main flavor direction being nuts and dark chocolate. With the emergence of specialty coffee concepts, to preserve more acidity, FrontStreet Coffee roasts Yirgacheffe coffee only to an appropriate light level, allowing FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe to express pleasant fruit sweetness and sourness with white floral notes. FrontStreet Coffee's roasters consider that FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe is primarily represented by fruit acidity tones, making it more suitable for light roasting to highlight Yirgacheffe's bright fruit acidity.

Cupping Profile

Freshly roasted FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe underwent cupping and tasting by FrontStreet Coffee, experiencing the washed Yirgacheffe from perspectives of dry aroma, wet aroma, flavor, cleanliness, body, and aftertaste. The dry aroma of FrontStreet Coffee's washed Goddingding Cooperative coffee exudes fresh passion fruit, citrus, and berry sour aromas. The wet aroma reveals citrus and berries. Upon entry, citrus acidity, berry sweetness, almond, tea-like sensations, with an aftertaste carrying honey sweetness. The body is light, acidity is bright, clean, and refreshing.

Freshness Guarantee

Coffee beans have a 4-7 day degassing period after roasting before entering their optimal flavor window. As storage time extends, coffee aroma accelerates volatilization, and flavor profile significantly diminishes. To ensure everyone experiences coffee at its best, FrontStreet Coffee guarantees shipping only beans roasted within 5 days, so the coffee beans you receive have optimal aroma.

Brewing Method

Since FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe is grown at high altitudes and roasted lightly, the internal structure of the coffee beans hasn't been altered much. To extract more rich aromas, FrontStreet Coffee uses higher water temperature and finer grind size for extraction, paired with V60 drippers. When brewing light-roasted acidic coffee, FrontStreet Coffee's baristas prioritize using resin V60 drippers. The V60 dripper body features flow ribs connecting the top and bottom and a large circular hole at the center, which accelerates water flow speed. The spiral-shaped exhaust groove design extends the water flow path, increasing contact time between coffee grounds and hot water. Each water stream converges along the grooves toward the filter cup's center point, concentrating pressure on the coffee grounds and extracting coffee with richer layering.

Brewing Parameters

FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe brewing parameters:

• Dripper: V60
• Water temperature: 92-93°C
• Dose: 15g
• Ratio: 1:15
• Grind size: Fine sugar (20# sieve 78%)

First pour 30g of water for 30 seconds bloom, then pour 95g (scale shows around 125g), completing in about 1 minute. When water level drops to 2/3 of the coffee bed, pour the remaining 100g (scale shows around 225g), completing in about 1 minute 35 seconds. Complete drip filtration at 2'10", remove the filter cup, and finish extraction.

Flavor Profile

FrontStreet Coffee's washed Goddingding Cooperative flavor: Entry reveals jasmine fragrance, lemon, citrus, and green tea. As temperature changes, notes of berries, cream, and sugarcane emerge in the aftertaste, with noticeable sweetness and a clean, sweet mouthfeel.

Connect With Us

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style).

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473