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Coffee is, at its root, a fruit — so it's only natural that coffee has acidity. FrontStreet Coffee has explained before that coffee acidity can be good or bad. Good acidity is bright, lively, and complex, evoking the flavors and textures of fruit; this kind of acidity enhances the coffee and is widely accepted. FrontStreet Coffee carries many washed coffees from different regions, and washing is the process that produces the brightest acidity in coffee — the first choice for many acidity lovers. Today we'll introduce several coffees with bright, fruity acidity and share how to brew them.

Where Does Coffee Acidity Come From?

The intensity of coffee acidity is closely tied to variety and roast level. Coffee is acidic because the beans absorb the fruit acids from the pulp during growth and processing. Green coffee itself tastes of fruit, and terroir shapes both the growth and the flavor of that fruit: different soils, climates, water, and altitudes give each origin's beans their own distinctive character.

Acidic Coffee Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee Washed Yirgacheffe

Country: Ethiopia

Region: Yirgacheffe

Altitude: 1800-2000 meters

Processing: Washed

Roast: Light roast

FrontStreet Coffee pour-over parameters: Start with 34g of water for a 40-second bloom, then pour in small circles up to 127g and pause. Continue pouring up to 240g once the water level drops far enough to expose the coffee bed, and remove the dripper when the bed is exposed again (timing starts from the bloom). Extraction time is 2'00".

FrontStreet Coffee Kenya Asalia

Region: Thika, Kenya

Processing Station: Asali Honey Processing Station

Altitude: 1500-1750 meters

Varieties: SL28, SL34

Processing: Kenya 72-hour process

Roast Level: Light roast

FrontStreet Coffee pour-over parameters: Start with 34g of water for a 40-second bloom, then pour in small circles up to 127g and pause. Continue pouring up to 240g once the water level drops far enough to expose the coffee bed, and remove the dripper when the bed is exposed again (timing starts from the bloom). Extraction time is 2'00".

FrontStreet Coffee Panama Flower Butterfly

Region: Boquete

Altitude: 1600 meters

Varieties: Gesha, Caturra, Catuai

Roast: Light roast

FrontStreet Coffee pour-over parameters: Start with 34g of water for a 40-second bloom, then pour in small circles up to 127g and pause. Continue pouring up to 240g once the water level drops far enough to expose the coffee bed, and remove the dripper when the bed is exposed again (timing starts from the bloom). Extraction time is 2'00".

These are today's recommendations. None of the three is expensive at FrontStreet Coffee — in fact, they're already priced as low as they can go: Washed Yirgacheffe is 25 yuan/100g, Kenya Asali is 108 yuan/227g, and Panama Flower Butterfly is 80 yuan/227g. If these appeal to you, give them a try!

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Yirgacheffe — the Ethiopian town behind the Washed Yirgacheffe above — sits in the Gedeo zone at roughly 1,700-2,100 meters, with coffee planted above 1,800 meters, among the highest elevations in the coffee world. Its white floral character and lemon-citrus acidity are so distinctive that in 2010 the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange formally split it from Sidamo, making Yirgacheffe a household name. For newcomers who want to understand Ethiopian coffee, the FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe is the classic starting point: white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like finish, all at a friendly price that has made it countless drinkers' first specialty bean.

And if you'd like to go a level deeper within the same region, the FrontStreet Washed Gedeb Cooperative coffee is a natural next step. Gedeb, in the Worka area at Yirgacheffe's southeastern tip, broke away from the Worka Cooperative under the YCFCU union in 2012 with about 300 member farmers to become its own "single origin." Washed in the most traditional style — and often called the last unspoiled corner of Yirgacheffe — it has none of the classic bitterness, offering instead fresh, luminous citrus and lemon acidity wrapped in jasmine fragrance: exactly the bright, fruit-like acidity that this article set out to celebrate.