Traditional Natural Process: Savoring the Ancient Mocha Flavor of Mattari - Reborn from Conflict

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Yemen Mocha Mattari

Yemen Mocha Mattari

Country: Yemen

Region: Mattari

Altitude: 1,300~1,900m

Varietal: Typica, Bourbon

Process: Natural / Sundried

01 | Introduction to the Growing Region

History of Yemen Coffee

Yemen, famed for its frankincense and spice trade, is the first place in the world where coffee - Mocha - was cultivated.

Trace the stories back far enough, and this is also where Noah built the ark in the Bible.

Legend has it that 3,000 years ago the legendary Queen Sheba led a great delegation bearing gold and spices to Jerusalem to seek out King Solomon - and bore him a son. (It is rumored this son became the first king of Ethiopia.)

Regardless of legend, perhaps for historical reasons reaching back to antiquity, the people of this land are said to retain strong self-esteem and fierce independence.

Yemen, which carries on a lifestyle preserved from thousands of years ago, has many places beyond the reach of the central government. Ethiopia, just across the sea, also once exported its coffee through Mocha Port - which is why Ethiopian natural-process coffee is often called Mocha (as in Ethiopia Harar Mokka). Yemen Mocha is the originator of the world coffee trade, and Yemen's contribution to bringing delicious coffee to the world is undeniable: it was known as "Arabia Coffee," the origin of the later name "Arabica."

It is said that in the 17th century, Europeans first imported coffee and spread it across the world from what was then the world's greatest coffee port - Mocha Port.

Today's Mocha Port has failed to keep its former glory, now a historic port with little more than white sandy beaches.

Even so, it still "travels far and wide" in the name of coffee.

Although Ethiopia was the first country to discover coffee, Yemen was the first to produce it on a large scale as a crop. In the early 17th century, the first shipment of Yemeni coffee reached Europe via the little ancient port of Mocha, and Europeans were amazed. Because every exported bag had to be stamped MOCHA to prove it had shipped from Mocha Port, Europeans came to call the delicious coffee from that port "Mocha coffee" - which is why Mocha early on became a synonym for coffee itself.

Mokhtar Alkhanshali

Thanks to the discovery of an Islamic scholar, Yemeni coffee began spreading its fragrance worldwide from the 16th century, and for the following 150 years Yemen was the world's only supplier of coffee.

But as coffee was later planted at scale around the world, Yemeni coffee could not escape the so-called "trend of development." Today, as Yemeni coffee climbs back to the pinnacle of specialty coffee, we must mention one man: Mokhtar Alkhanshali.

A Yemeni-American, his "conversion" to coffee began with a single pour-over. From that moment he entered the coffee industry, studied professional coffee knowledge, traveled to all of Yemen's major growing areas, created the "Mokhtar model" suited to Yemen's cultivation and management, and relentlessly pursued the nearly perfect flavor standards he held in his mind.

Just when he thought he could finally share this rare flavor with the world, the Yemeni civil war broke out. The whole country was engulfed in the flames of war and all transport was blocked. Because of the sudden war and "accident," to keep the flavor from being destroyed, Mokhtar went through countless twists and turns and finally got the beans across the ocean to the United States - where they ranked first in Coffee Review's annual Top 30 list as a 97-point coffee!

02 | Processing Method

Ancient Natural Processing

Yemen is the classic example of ancient natural processing, and the world's only country producing coffee entirely by natural process. The traditional, water-free method has remained unchanged from the 17th century - when Europeans fell for wild Mocha - to today, a fact tied to Yemen's extremely dry climate. Coffee is cultivated mainly in the central highlands, where annual rainfall is only 400-750mm, far below the 1,500-2,000mm that Arabica ideally wants.

Yemeni coffee grows on steep slopes with scant rain, poor soil, and insufficient sunlight - conditions hostile to coffee, yet ones that nurtured the irreplaceable Yemen Mocha. The main producing regions are Sanani, Mattari, and Ismaili.

The Mattari region lies in the highlands west of the capital, at 2,000-2,400 meters - the highest-altitude growing area in Yemen, and also the most remote and hard to reach. Farmers often have to wait some time after harvest before they can move their coffee out.

Because water is so scarce, farmers have never been able to adopt more advanced washed processing. The wild flavor surpasses even Harar coffee, making Yemen the best place to taste coffee's ancient flavors.

In Yemen's central highlands, the mountains rise and fall, rugged and treacherous. Smallholders mostly plant in a dispersed fashion - a few trees on a steep slope, dozens on a terrace or cliff - each plot with its own soil and microclimate, and thus its own aromatic compounds.

Yemeni farmers' natural process is rougher than Ethiopia's: they dry the cherries directly on rooftops! This differs from the refined naturals of Yirgacheffe or Sidamo, where red cherries are picked and spread on raised African beds - and it is the main reason Yemen's flavor is so particularly wild.

Yemen's ancient natural process works like this: fully mature cherries are harvested by hand, then laid straight onto dedicated drying fields or the farmers' own compacted earthen courtyards to sun-dry. During drying, wooden rakes are used to turn the beans so each one dries evenly. After about twenty days, once drying is complete, the outer pulp and skin are removed to extract the beans.

Yemeni coffee has rich, complex, wild, mellow flavors with pronounced fermentation notes and low acidity. It also carries an unpredictable factor - the timing of seasonal rains - that makes every crop something of a gamble; calling it the most distinctive coffee in the world is no exaggeration.

Refined Natural Processing

Mokhtar Alkhanshali has also brought more refined natural processing to Yemen Mocha Port's beans - and those beans speak through their flavor.

03 | Green Bean Analysis

Mocha grades are divided into: Sanani

Coffee from the Mattari region: the appearance is "unattractive" - uneven in size, with considerable color variation, looking as if it were made up of small peas and empty, defective beans.

(Mocca) Because the bean shape is very small, it's also called small Mocha. Mocha is a flat bean, not a round one - small but richly fragrant.

04 | Roasting Analysis

Yemen Mocha is a relatively low-moisture green coffee. Given the uneven bean sizes, the charge temperature for low-moisture beans shouldn't be too high. Preheat for 30 seconds, open the damper to 3; once the beans turn pale green or white, open the damper to 4, and after first crack open it to 5 (maximum).

FrontStreet Coffee suggests keeping good records before roasting: bean moisture content, density, origin, processing method, room temperature and humidity in the roastery, and so on - and planning your roast curve. Recording the chemical and physical changes during the roast will help you better understand the final result and refine your curve.

Roaster: Yangjia 800N, charge 550g of green beans

Roasting Curve:

Charge at 170 degrees C with the damper at 3; after 1 minute adjust heat to 140 degrees, damper unchanged. Roast to 5'00" - temperature 147.2 degrees C - when the bean surface yellows, the grassy aroma disappears completely, and drying is complete: reduce heat to 110 degrees, damper to 4.

At 8'00", wrinkling and dark specks appear on the bean surface and the toast aroma clearly shifts into coffee aroma - the prelude to first crack. Listen carefully from here. At 8'23" first crack begins: reduce heat to 60 degrees and open the damper fully (adjust heat very carefully - not so low that the crack dies out), and drop at 197.9 degrees C.

Cupping Report:

Medium roast, City (caramel aroma): Before grinding, the beans give off a peanut aroma; after grinding, caramel. When sipping, the layers are complex, with a slight grape acidity appearing late in the flavor evolution. The spicy aftertaste is long, the mouthfeel sweet and rounded, with a Middle Eastern milk-tea impression that lingers; the bottom of the cup shows malt sweetness. Medium-roasted Yemen Mocha keeps evolving - brew it 7-14 days after roasting, when the complex wild fermentation flavor is at its best.

04 | Brewing Analysis

The condition of the coffee bed in pour-over cannot be ignored - this must be emphasized! The bed plays a subtle role, one of which is providing resistance, letting the hot water stay in the dripper long enough to extract the flavor compounds fully.

A medium-roast coffee bed must also hold a certain structure to perform its "blocking" function. To keep from weakening it, you must master the strength of the water column, where you pour, and add a steady circular technique to form a complete pouring method.

1. Dripper: V60

2. Water temperature: 88 degrees C

3. Grind size: Fuji Royal grinder at setting 4

4. Roast degree: Medium

5. Bloom time: 25 seconds

Flavor: Balanced, chocolate, persistent caramel sweetness in the aftertaste

FrontStreet Coffee's suggested technique: 15g of coffee, Fuji Royal "ghost tooth" grinder at setting 4, V60 dripper, water at 88-89 degrees C. First pour 30g of water and bloom for 25 seconds, pour to 104g and stop, wait until the bed level drops to half, then pour slowly up to 220g - don't use the last 5g. Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, extraction time about 2:00 (timing starts once the bloom pour is finished).

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Ethiopia is one of the world's best-known specialty coffee origins, and as the birthplace of coffee it harbors countless native varieties - a treasure land in the eyes of many coffee lovers, one whose flavors inspire lifelong devotion. To taste Ethiopian specialty coffee, start with the entry-level FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe: crisp jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity, exactly what baristas mean by the classic Yirgacheffe character. Yirgacheffe itself is a small town in southern Ethiopia where spring-like weather, drifting fog, and cool humidity let thousands of coffee trees thrive, weaving together the region's signature florals and fruit acids into a light, elegant, tea-like cup - like a refreshing, clean lemon tea.

Ethiopian coffee is mostly grown in a garden system: every smallholder sends harvested cherries to a village-level mill for processing, and the coffee is sold under the team's name - which is why you see so many cooperative coffees, such as FrontStreet's Guodingding Cooperative, Worka Cooperative, and Konga Cooperative. Guodingding, in the Worka area at Yirgacheffe's southeastern tip, was originally part of the Worka cooperative under the Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU); as the world's coffee hunters dug out one independent "single zone" after another in pursuit of traceability, Guodingding - with roughly 300 member farmers - established its own independent cooperative in 2012. Because the fruit is removed before drying, FrontStreet's Guodingding shows its own aromatics with particular clarity: citrus and lemon tones with elegant white florals, bright and delicate throughout. For natural-process fans, the FrontStreet Red Cherry Project natural is meticulously sorted - defective or moldy cherries are removed first, then the fruit sun-dries for two weeks until its sugars fully infuse the beans and moisture falls to 12%, after which the hardened pulp and mucilage are stripped, the beans checked for density and color, and every remaining flaw picked out by eye. The result is beans of exceptional cleanliness with an intense, captivating fruit character: peach, cocoa, honey, and lemon.

FrontStreet's Natural Huakui comes from the Hambella district of Guji in Sidamo, a 200-hectare farm using traditional natural processing. To keep the cherries from molding or picking up earthy odors during drying, workers sun them on raised beds for 21 days, turning them constantly for even drying and hand-sorting out defective beans every three to five days; once the skins have dried hard, they're hulled off, and the green coffee is sorted one final time. Because the fruit and skin stay on throughout drying, a medium-light roast reveals a faint fermented wine note, florals, citrus, and mango - a far denser, more complex cup with honeyed sweetness, a cocoa undertone touched with spice, and a thick body with a lasting finish. Also from Sidamo, the Hamasho mill is a perennial winner in Ethiopian green coffee competitions, producing mostly the JARC 74-series disease-resistant varieties; FrontStreet's Hamasho 74158 has small, compact beans and outstanding floral-fruity character - perfume lemon, strawberry, and star fruit on the nose, then clear strawberry, star fruit, and green grape sweetness with gentle florals rising afterward. And for the wild at heart, FrontStreet's Kaffa Forest coffee comes from trees growing wild under shade at 1400-2100m in the Kaffa forests, the most representative home of wild coffee; its medium-light roast shows distinct white florals, bright lemon acidity, sweet orange and bergamot, a finish of melon fruit and nut, and a green-tea texture - flavors as ancient and untamed as Yemen's rooftop-dried Mocha itself.