Ethiopia Natural Guji Hambela Coffee Bean G1 Flavor Profile - Flower Queen Coffee Pour-Over Taste Description

Located in southern Ethiopia, Sidamo was once an enormous coffee-producing region with 23 districts, over 50 cooperatives, and more than 200 coffee processing stations. Its vast territory spanned multiple administrative regions, with each small sub-region possessing different terroir environments and climate characteristics, resulting in varying degrees of variation in the coffee grown in different areas and providing rich and diverse flavor profiles.

In the last century, Yirgacheffe originally belonged to the Sidamo region and was exported as "large Sidamo coffee." However, due to its early recognition for outstanding flavor, it became the first to break away from the Sidamo classification and establish itself independently. With support from the Ethiopian government, this town's coffee was successfully registered globally as the "Yirgacheffe®" flavor trademark in 2007.

Similarly, around 2008 when the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) was established, Guji coffee was also classified under the "Sidamo A" category in auction classifications. Later, as more and more smaller sub-regions here凭借 their exceptional flavor performance secured top positions in international green bean competitions like COE, Guji's reputation grew significantly. Consequently, ECX separated it into a new category in 2015.

Compared to other traditional producing regions, Guji is decidedly remote in Ethiopia. This area not only suffers from inconvenient transportation and is characterized by high mountains and dense forests but was also isolated from the outside world in the past. The people here originally made their living through animal husbandry, but later, large mineral resources were discovered underground, leading to the rise of the mining industry. Only in recent years, as Guji's high-quality coffee attracted increasing attention from international buyers, has the coffee industry developed rapidly, becoming a new important part of the Guji region.

Unlike Yirgacheffe, Guji, as a rising star, saw its coffee industry develop later but possesses advantages such as high altitude, abundant mineral-rich soil, and sufficient available land resources, providing favorable conditions for establishing large-scale washed stations and sun-drying fields. Additionally, the better-preserved original forests here ensure excellent water and soil conservation and contribute to unique flavor characteristics.

Exploring Guji's Coffee Sub-Regions

When FrontStreet Coffee opens Guji's coffee distribution map for observation, well-known sub-regions include Ana Sora, Hambela, Shakiso, Uraga, and Rogicha. Unlike traditional producing regions such as Yirgacheffe, Hambella is actually also the name of a coffee farm, belonging to the locally renowned METAD Agricultural Development PLC. It serves as both an independent coffee farm and the main processing station for nearby growing areas, processing coffee planted in the vicinity and selling it as independent batches. As an Ethiopian native coffee export company, METAD was founded by Aman Adinew in 2013, with coffee produced from the Gedeo Zone and Gedeb District in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNPR), as well as the Guji Zone and Hambella Estate in the Oromia Region.

Aman comes from a coffee family—his grandmother established coffee farms in Ethiopia's Harar and Sidamo regions in the last century, and Aman himself served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX). After leaving government service, he began establishing his own company METAD to help modernize the local coffee industry, collaborating with thousands of small farmers in Yirgacheffe and Guji.

The entire Hambella farm covers 200 hectares, located approximately 75 kilometers from Yirgacheffe in Ethiopia's best coffee center region. Its processing stations are quite professional and well-developed in terms of equipment, management, and scale. Additional factors such as fertile volcanic soil, natural organic farming practices, and relatively mature post-processing methods have been key to making coffee from this area explode in popularity in recent years.

The Story of "Hua Kui" Coffee

When mentioning Hambella, many people, like FrontStreet Coffee, probably first think of "Hua Kui," since this bean's other name is "Hambella." In coffee circles, "Hua Kui" refers to a natural process coffee bean from Ethiopia's Hambella region, with the full English name "Ethiopia Guji Hambella Buku Abel." Broadly speaking, it's the champion bean from Ethiopia's Guji region, while more specifically, it's a natural process batch produced and processed by the smaller Hambella Buku Abel processing station.

The impressive artistic name "Hua Kui" was actually given by domestic green bean merchants after this bean successfully won the TOH natural process category championship, combining it with Chinese context to mean "the champion of all flowers." Later, with the promotional support of various merchants, it also gained the reputation of "being comparable to Geisha." With its famous reputation, excellent quality, rich and juicy fruit flavors, affordable price, and extremely high extraction compatibility (easy to brew), the combination of these advantages not only made Hua Kui stand out among Ethiopian coffees but also made it the first choice for many friends trying single-origin coffee for the first time.

As FrontStreet Coffee just mentioned, before this bean was called "Hua Kui," it only had one English name: "Hambella," translated into Chinese as "罕贝拉" (Hǎnbèilā). To put it plainly, the "Hua Kui coffee" we talk about is actually a traditional natural process G1 grade coffee bean from the Hambella region, with "Buku Abel" processing station as its more precise traceability information, located in Dimtu town.

The Evolution of Hua Kui

After "Hua Kui" became famous overnight, to meet the surge in market demand, DW company added up to 5 independent green bean drying processing stations in Hambella Wamena Wereda, all located within the core producing area of Dimtu town. Besides the original Buku Abel, four other small villages—Buku Saysay, Haro Soresa, Tirtiro Goye, and Seke Bokosa—also joined the production of natural process coffee beans. It is reported that at this time, the annual production of "Hua Kui" under DW company had already reached tens of millions of tons.

Starting from the 2018 production season, Hua Kui (natural process G1 coffee beans) from the same growing origin and same processing station already showed some flavor changes. FrontStreet Coffee discovered through cupping that although the 2018 and 2019 Hua Kui had flavors similar to the 2017 Hua Kui, they were inferior to the "first-generation Hua Kui" in terms of body, aftertaste, and other mouthfeel aspects.

Therefore, to continue selling this natural process coffee from Hambella while making a certain distinction from the original version, domestic green bean trading companies calculated from 2017 onward and formulated X.0 suffixes for each subsequent year's batch. For example, the 2018 batch was called "Hua Kui 2.0," the 2019 production was called "Hua Kui 3.0 and 3.1"... last year's release was "Hua Kui 7.0," and so on. Naturally, this year's latest version is "Hua Kui 8.0." This way, we can also easily determine which year's batch the Hua Kui we purchased belongs to through this suffix.

Hua Kui 8.0 Flavor Profile

The new season's Hua Kui 8.0 shows more intense fruit aroma in its dry fragrance than 7.0, with complex aromas of guava, jackfruit, apricot, dried fruit, citrus, and floral notes. When hot water is added, honey and berry sweet aromas are detected.

Through slurping, FrontStreet Coffee first experiences multiple fruit sweet and sour notes in this 8.0, including dried mango, jackfruit, orange, and passion fruit. The juice-like sensation is clear, with a rounded mouthfeel. As the temperature slightly decreases, the light sweetness of peach and the acidity of berries begin to emerge. After swallowing, one can experience a sweet aftertaste similar to drinking black tea.

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