90+ Dimella Pour-over Parameters Recommendation_Dimella Coffee Bitterness_Dimella Sun-dried or Honey Processed

Introducing Levelup and Drima Zede Coffee

Levelup is the accessible brand of the celebrated American coffee merchant Ninety Plus (90+), and its Drima Zede beans are among the few coffees that are both affordable and delicious. In the local language, Drima Zede conveys "charming, light tones with mature fermented fruit aromas of mango and pineapple." Ninety Plus shares a naming philosophy with FrontStreet Coffee — confident and unapologetic, because they truly have the craft to back it up.

Origin and Processing

Seriously — the origin is Gedio, which we take to be the town of Gedeb, just rendered differently in the local dialect. Remarkably, this region, famous for washed processing, has produced a stunning natural-processed bean, with cupping notes strikingly close to the familiar descriptions of washed lots. Ethiopia keeps subverting everyone's expectations. As the apprentice Ami put it: better to be stunning than safe and mediocre.

Cupping Notes

Drima Zede cupping flavors:

Blackberry acidity, plum, and orange aromatics in a clean, gradually unfolding profile, finishing with fermented sweetness of mango and pineapple.

The Sidamo Region

Sidamo grows in Ethiopia's southern highlands, at altitudes between 4,600 and 7,200 feet in Sidamo Province. It is a famous specialty coffee region in southern Ethiopia, bordering Kenya, lying southeast of Jimma and directly south of the capital. Its coffees typically show pronounced sweetness and are loved by many. Annual production is about 225,000 bags of 60kg each. The beans run slightly smaller than Longberry, with a greenish-gray color. On Sidamo's natural-drying fields, coffee rests on wooden frames fitted with jute netting while workers turn the cherries by hand under the sun. Natural-processed Sidamo is usually exported as Grade 4, while washed Sidamo, owing to its more refined handling, mostly ships as Grade 2.

A Diverse Flavor Landscape

Sidamo's flavors are extraordinarily varied. Different soils, microclimates, and countless native varieties unfold across a dramatic terrain of towering mountains, highlands, plateaus, valleys, and plains. The geology is fertile, free-draining volcanic soil nearly two meters deep, dark brown to brown at the surface. The region's greatest advantage is that fertility is maintained through organic recycling — fallen leaves and plant root residues return to the soil as fertilizer.

Drima Zede's Processing Excellence

Drima Zede means "Best Approach" in the local dialect. According to the producer, this Yirgacheffe is a specialized line developed from Ninety Plus's years of experience. Natural processing rarely achieves pure flavors, but with Ninety Plus's technical support, Drima Zede uses only hand-selected, fully ripe cherries, dried naturally with meticulous, constant stirring to ensure consistency. The result is an exceptionally transparent, pure profile that shifts dramatically between hot and cold, with captivating fruit, floral, and oak-barrel aromatics.

Pour-Over Brewing Guide

Drima Zede pour-over reference:

Hario V60 dripper, 16g of coffee, 32g of water for a 30-second bloom, extraction at 89–90°C, 1:15 ratio, medium-fine grind (Fuji Royal setting 3.5). For the second pour, add water to 110ml and stop; once the water level drops, pour again slowly and evenly, keeping the level from rising too high. Finish at 233ml, with a total extraction time of 2 minutes 15 seconds. The result is rich natural sweetness — adjust the details to your own taste.

Brand Recommendation

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted 90+ Drima Zede carries full guarantees of brand and quality — and exceptional value. A half-jin (227g) bag costs only 90 yuan; at 15g per cup, that is 15 cups of coffee at roughly 6 yuan each. Compared with café single origins selling for dozens of yuan per cup, the value is hard to beat.

FrontStreet Coffee: a Guangzhou-based roastery with a small storefront but a wonderfully diverse bean menu, spanning famous names and lesser-known finds alike.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, home to countless native varieties, and a treasure land for specialty lovers. A fine starting point is FrontStreet's washed Yirgacheffe: clear jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity in a light, elegant, tea-like cup — like a clean, refreshing lemon tea from the misty highlands around the southern town of Yirgacheffe itself. Also from the cooperative model of Ethiopian farming comes FrontStreet's Guodingding Cooperative lot: independent since 2012 with about 300 member farmers in the Worka area, pulped before drying to let its own character shine through — citrus and lemon tones with graceful white florals, bright and delicate.

Lovers of natural processing should seek out FrontStreet's Natural Red Cherry, sun-dried for two full weeks until the sugars of the fruit infuse the beans and moisture falls to 12%, then hulled, density-sorted, and hand-picked at every stage — yielding peaches, cocoa, honey, and lemon in an impeccably clean cup. The Natural Huakui, from a 200-hectare farm in Hambella, Guji, spends 21 days on raised beds with constant turning and repeated hand-sorting, emerging at a light-medium roast with faint fermented wine notes, florals, citrus, and mango, thick in body and long on honeyed, cocoa-spiced finish. For something different, the Hamasho 74158 from the JARC 74 series of disease-resistant varieties smells of perfume lemon, strawberry, and star fruit, while the Kaffa Forest coffee — wild coffee grown under shade at 1,400–2,100 meters — offers white florals, bright lemon acidity, sweet orange and bergamot, and a green-tea-like finish.