Ethiopian Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations: How Much Does a Cup of Yirgacheffe Coffee Cost?

Traditionally, the black coffee we drink is made with dark roast, mostly presenting a rich bitter taste, such as FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee and FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Mandheling coffee. However, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe not only lacks the heavy bitterness but also carries fresh and bright floral and fruit aromas, subverting many people's stereotypes about coffee. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe has also become the gateway single-origin coffee for many people entering the world of specialty coffee.

The so-called FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe flavor is characterized by elegant white jasmine floral notes, bright citrus and lemon acidity, a clean and clear charm, and a fresh yet rich mouthfeel. FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe can possess such exquisite fragrance, which is closely related to the geographical environment of cultivation, refined washed processing methods, and light roasting.

The Origin of Yirgacheffe

Yirgacheffe refers to a small town in the northwestern part of the Sidamo province in Ethiopia. Nestled by mountains and lakes, at an altitude of 1700-2100 meters, it is one of Ethiopia's highest altitude coffee-growing regions. Originally belonging to Sidamo, it later became independent from this large producing area due to its unique flavor and growing reputation, becoming a dedicated Yirgacheffe region. The town is shrouded in mist, spring-like all year round, with gentle breezes, cool but not hot, rainy but not humid, and free from winter frost damage, making it extremely suitable for the growth of coffee as an agricultural crop.

Washed Processing Innovation

Traditional Ethiopian coffee used natural processing methods. Due to backward technology, coffee cherries were directly spread on the ground for natural drying. This crude method easily allowed coffee to absorb earthy flavors, and the quality of coffee was inconsistent. To improve coffee quality, the Ethiopian government introduced more advanced washed processing technology and related equipment from Central and South America in 1972. Washing not only greatly reduced the defect rate of coffee but also won FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe its fresh citrus tones and elegant white floral aromas, with an overall bright and delicate flavor.

Light Roast Revolution

Unlike that era of "bitter coffee," the lightly roasted FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe can be said to have opened the "new era of fruity acidic coffee." The reason coffee becomes strongly bitter is 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, roasters only roast Yirgacheffe to an appropriate light degree, allowing Yirgacheffe to express pleasant fruit sweetness and sourness, as well as white floral aromas. Preferring sweetness and fearing bitterness happens to align with public taste, which is one of the reasons why Yirgacheffe is so popular worldwide.

Washing allows FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe to present a more unrestrained and rich aroma, while light roasting by FrontStreet Coffee allows Yirgacheffe to retain more acidic fragrance and become a synonym for unique flavor, refreshing everyone's impression of coffee. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee has selected washed FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe as the representative of African producing regions for daily consumption beans, listed in small packages at 25 yuan/100g, allowing everyone to taste the classic Yirgacheffe flavor. FrontStreet Coffee's daily beans have carefully selected seven producing region flavors with super high recognition. For coffee enthusiasts who are initially exploring coffee and are unsure about their flavor preferences, FrontStreet Coffee's daily beans allow everyone to start from regional flavors, thus better choosing which region's coffee suits them, while also being an excellent choice for studying regional flavor types.

Brewing Guide

Some customers, after purchasing FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe coffee beans, have expressed not knowing how to brew it to present the classic Yirgacheffe flavor. Here, FrontStreet Coffee will share their extraction approach based on café standards.

Since FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe uses light roasting, the coffee beans have a relatively hard texture and require high-temperature water at 92℃-93℃ to stimulate the floral and fruit flavors in the coffee. FrontStreet Coffee recommends a medium-fine grind size (78% pass rate through Chinese standard #20 sieve). Too coarse a grind cannot extract the body substances, making the brewed coffee seem thin. Too fine a grind can easily lead to over-extraction at high water temperatures, making the brewed coffee prone to bitterness and astringency.

During the cupping process, FrontStreet Coffee noticed that this bean exhibits different flavors at different temperature stages, so the brewing method will adopt three-stage extraction, allowing different flavor compounds to better express themselves as the coffee bed gradually warms up. To highlight the fresh and charming aroma of washed Yirgacheffe, FrontStreet Coffee uses a V60 dripper for brewing. The spiral rib design of the dripper allows coffee grounds to degas better, maximizing the volatilization and dissolution of acidic aromatic compounds.

In terms of brewing ratio, FrontStreet Coffee believes that 1:15～1:16 are both acceptable. If you want a richer mouthfeel, use 1:15; if you want to more clearly perceive the floral sweetness, you can use 1:16, allowing the flavors to spread out more.

Brewing Parameters

Dripper: V60
Water temperature: 92-93°C
Coffee dose: 15g
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
Grind size: Fine sugar size (78% pass rate through #20 sieve)

Three-Stage Pouring

Use twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome and bloom for 30s. Then use a small water flow to pour in circles from inside to outside until reaching 125g, then segment. Wait for the coffee bed to drop to half the dripper's height, then continue with the same fine water flow to pour the third stage to 225g. Remove the dripper after all coffee liquid has filtered through, with a total time of about 2 minutes.

The ground FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe has elegant white jasmine floral aromas. The handcrafted black coffee can present clear lemon and citrus acidity, prominent cane sugar sweetness, a clean mouthfeel, and a long-lasting green tea-like aftertaste. As the temperature drops, there are also berry sweet and sour notes.

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Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473