Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Project Coffee Bean Story: Pour-over Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry Coffee Flavor Characteristics

What Is the Red Cherry Project?

Lately you may have noticed "Red Cherry Project" labels turning up all over coffee menus: one estate's Red Cherry Project, a natural Red Cherry, a washed Red Cherry, and so on. Customers often ask whether Red Cherry means the coffee tastes of cherries. A few insist that the Red Cherry they drank really did. And some wonder why the name points to red cherries rather than red apples or red strawberries. The answer is simple: when coffee cherries reach full ripeness, they look like dark red cherries. Because the color and shape are so similar, they earned the nickname "Red Cherry." The Red Cherry Project, also called Operation Red Cherry, was launched by the Dutch to encourage growers to pick only fully ripe fruit, so that the character of the ripe cherry reaches the cup.

Operation Red Cherry (ORC)

Operation Red Cherry (ORC) is a quality-improvement program for smallholder farms, designed to encourage coffee farmers and to surprise roasters. Trabocca, the largest green coffee merchant in the Netherlands, invites Ethiopian farms to produce small lots of roughly 1,500-3,000 kilograms (25-50 bags) before the harvest season. Only women are allowed to do the selecting, and they must pick 100% fully ripe red cherries, which makes a striking difference to the final flavor. Meticulous, sharp-eyed and hardworking Ethiopian women are the real engine behind the Red Cherry Project.

How the Red Cherry Project Works

The Red Cherry Project is also a way of reinforcing good practice, encouraging farms to invest more effort in sorting and picking. These coffees command relatively higher prices. The project includes washed, natural, semi-washed, semi-natural and experimental coffees. Its main producing regions include Yirgacheffe, Sidamo, Bench Maji (Bonga Forest), Lekempti, Kembata, Illubabor, Harar and Limu, and since 2011 the Golocha region near Harar. All of these areas yield distinctive coffees that fully showcase the character of Ethiopian beans.

Once Trabocca receives the coffee, it selects further. Farms that pass the cupping tests run by both the Ethiopian and the Dutch office, and that meet the standard, receive substantial bonuses. A coffee must score above 88 points in cupping to qualify as a Red Cherry Project quality coffee.

Trabocca, the driving force behind the Red Cherry Project, reinvests all the profits earned over the years into its partner farms. Trabocca stresses that this is a non-profit project: the company runs it with just four people, including the owner and the secretary. Other administrative work is supported by the parent company to keep overheads down, and all profits flow back to the partner farms.

FrontStreet Coffee's Red Cherry Experience

FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Project natural coffee beans carry notes of peach, cocoa, honey and lemon. Does that mean FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe Red Cherry can only be light-roasted? What happens at medium roast? What flavors and mouthfeel would FrontStreet Coffee's natural Red Cherry show then? At FrontStreet Coffee we have also roasted our Yirgacheffe Red Cherry to medium and pulled it as an SOE (single origin espresso). The result shows distinct fermented fruit aromas, prominent citrus and noticeable sweetness.

Brewing Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry Pour-Over:

Recommended Brewing Method: Pour Over

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 90-93°C

Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15

Grind Size: Medium-fine

Brewing Technique:

30g of water for the bloom, then wait 30 seconds. Continue pouring to 125g, then wait until the water level drops to just above the coffee bed before pouring on to 225g. Stop pouring. Total extraction time should be 2 minutes, timed from the bloom.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If this article has you curious about the Red Cherry Project, the natural Yirgacheffe Red Cherry is a great place to begin. FrontStreet Coffee roasts it medium-light and lets the classic Yirgacheffe character lead: bright citrus and lemon acidity, a clear jasmine lift, and a clean tea-like finish. It is a friendly first taste of the region for anyone new to Ethiopian coffee.

To compare processing methods, try FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe from the Gudingding cooperative. Grown in the Woka area on the southeastern edge of Yirgacheffe, it is fully washed and roasted medium-light, so it shows fresh, bright orange and lemon acidity and jasmine florals. Both beans work well as pour-over, cold brew or espresso.

For the natural Red Cherry here, brew it as a pour-over through a V60 at 90-91°C with 15g of coffee and a 1:15 ratio. Grind to about the texture of fine caster sugar, aiming for roughly 80% passing a No. 20 sieve, and expect a total extraction of about 2 minutes.