Ethiopian Coffee Beans | Ethiopian Coffee Growing Regions | Guji Kayon Mountain Farm Washed

Ethiopia Guji Kayon Mountain Washed

Coffee Details

Country of Origin: Ethiopia

Region: Guji

Farm: Kayon Mountain

Producer: Ato Esmael and his family

Altitude: 1900-2100 meters

Variety: Ethiopia local heirloom

Processing Method: Washed

Kayon Mountain Farm, Guji

Single-farm coffees are rare in Ethiopia, and Kayon Mountain is one of them. The farm sits in Guji, and while its flavor profile shares something with Sidamo, it remains distinctly its own. The high altitude and the complex, diverse heirloom Typica varieties give this coffee rich floral and pear notes — truly exceptional, and a fitting final batch in this series of outstanding Ethiopian coffees.

Kayon Mountain Farm lies in the southern part of the Guji region, near Shakiso. Established in 2012, it spans 240 hectares and was founded to produce premium coffee while upholding social and environmental responsibilities.

The local people of Guji are the Guji Oromo, and coffee is the core crop of this highland community. In the past, Guji coffee was exported under the Sidamo name — yet in geography, cultivation, and cup profile alike, southern Guji is unique, clearly distinct from both Sidamo and Yirgacheffe. After years of persistent effort, Guji was finally officially recognized by the Ethiopian government as a region in its own right, separate from Sidamo.

Kayon Mountain is family-operated and holds a special license for "direct" trade with foreign markets. In Ethiopia, the vast majority of small farmers obtain seedlings from the government and must sell their coffee through the Ethiopia Commodities Exchange. Kayon Mountain, by contrast, runs its own washing station and hulling facility, keeping complete control over every post-harvest step, supervising quality strictly, and exporting directly. The farm grows exclusively local heirloom varieties, descended from the primary forests of western Ethiopia that later spread to regions such as Harar in the east and Guji in the south.

This lot is washed. After the pulp is removed, the beans ferment for 23-36 hours to break down the mucilage surrounding them, then, after a thorough washing, dry on raised African beds.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If Kayon Mountain has you curious about Ethiopian washed coffees, here are the FrontStreet Coffee lots we point people to first, drawn from our house notes:

FrontStreet Coffee Washed Yirgacheffe (house daily coffee)

To get to know Ethiopia, start with the most classic expression: our washed Yirgacheffe house coffee, known for white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like finish — plus an everyday price that has made it many people's very first specialty bean. Yirgacheffe itself is a small town in Ethiopia's southern Sidamo zone at roughly 1,700–2,100 meters, with the coffee planted above 1,800 meters — among the highest coffee elevations in the world. The land was a wetland since antiquity, and the name Yirgacheffe has become shorthand for unmistakable white florals and lemon-citrus acidity. The region's fame grew so great that in 2010 the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange finally separated it from Sidamo — and that is how the household name "Yirgacheffe coffee" was born.

FrontStreet Coffee Guodingding Cooperative

Yirgacheffe town actually breaks down into many micro-regions and even individual villages, several home to cooperatives with seasoned, well-practiced processing that lifts the coffee another notch. The most representative is the washed Guodingding Cooperative from Guodingding village. The cooperative sits in the Worka area at Yirgacheffe's southeastern end — once part of the Worka cooperative under the YCFCU union — and as drinkers chased ever-greater traceability, it was excavated lot by lot by coffee hunters worldwide as a "single micro-region." Guodingding still uses the most traditional washed method, and the result has been called the last unspoiled pure land of Yirgacheffe: none of the traditional bitterness, just clean, bright citrus and lemon acidity wrapped in jasmine fragrance — a cup many coffee lovers fall for at first sip.

FrontStreet Coffee Natural Red Cherry

From the same region, our Red Cherry lot is a full-red-cherry natural: only completely ripe, defect-free cherries are picked, screened once more at the station, then laid straight onto drying beds. For the first few days the cherries are turned every 2–3 hours so heat never builds unevenly and over-ferments the fruit. After three to five weeks of sun, workers strip the dried outer pulp by machine, weather permitting, and move the coffee to warehouses. Because the cherries dry with the fruit intact, the cup keeps its classic Yirgacheffe identity while gaining a natural's tropical fruit perfume: citrus acidity, a berry-juice juiciness, honeyed sweetness, and a cream-smooth texture.

FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe Pour-Over Recipe

Dripper: V60. Water: 90–91°C. Dose: 15g. Ratio: 1:15. Grind: EK43s at setting 10 — about the size of fine granulated sugar, with 80% passing a #20 sieve. Our pour: first, 30g of water for a 30-second bloom; then pour 95g more (the scale reads about 125g), finishing that pour around 1:00; once the level drops to two-thirds of the bed, add the final 100g (scale reads about 225g), finishing around 1:35. Drainage completes between 2:00 and 2:10 — lift off the dripper, and the extraction is done.