What are the characteristics of Yemeni Moka-Matari natural processed coffee beans? How to make Moka coffee beans

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

What are the characteristics of Yemen Mocha-Matari natural processed coffee beans? How should Mocha coffee beans be brewed to taste good?

Yemen lies in Asia, facing Ethiopia across the Red Sea in East Africa. It is the highest-quality natural sun-dried coffee producing country, and the coffee grown there is known as Mocha. Mocha itself is a coffee export port: in the early days, natural sun-dried beans from nearby East Africa were shipped out to the wider world through Mocha Port, so the natural sun-dried coffees of the region—Yemen included, along with East African Ethiopia—came to be called Mocha beans collectively.

Yemen Mocha (YEMEN MOCHA): from a botanical standpoint, coffee began in Ethiopia, but from a cultural one, the moment coffee was introduced to the European world happened in Arabia's Yemen. For a long stretch after that, to talk about coffee was to talk about Yemen, and to talk about Yemen was to talk about Mocha. Mocha was a commercial port, just as Brazilian coffee leaves through Santos, which is why Santos stands in for Brazilian coffee. In the same way, the coffee-exporting port of Mocha became the collective name for Yemen coffee. Yemen is utterly unlike other producing countries. Water is scarce, the climate is arid and the land is barren, and those conditions have shaped coffee trees that differ sharply from the carefully cultivated varieties of the major coffee nations. Next to Arabia's Yemen, the climate of Central and South America looks like a fully equipped greenhouse. Those unfavorable factors have driven Yemen's coffee industry steadily downhill, yet they are also the reason Yemen coffee carries an uncontrollable, primitive wildness in the cup.

Although Yemen's coffee industry has declined, the bean can still be found in today's specialty coffee market. Yemen's varieties are complex, so they are generally named by origin, as in Mattari, Sanani, Ismaeili, Hirazi and others.

Yemen's natural sun-drying method starts with hand-picking fully ripe cherries, which are then spread directly on a dedicated drying field or in the family's own compacted earthen courtyard to take the sun. During drying—much as rice is dried in Taiwan—wooden rakes are used to turn the beans so every one dries evenly. After about twenty days, when drying is complete, the outer pulp and skin are removed to release the coffee beans. Yemen coffee is characterized by rich, complex, wild, mellow and strongly fermented flavors with lower acidity. On top of that, Yemen coffee often carries an uncertain factor—the timing of seasonal rainfall—that makes it unpredictable. Calling it the most special coffee in the world is no exaggeration.

Yemen coffee grows on steep slopes with little rainfall, barren land and insufficient sunlight—conditions that are unfavourable for coffee in general. Yet these same unique, difficult and unfavorable conditions have nurtured a Yemen Mocha that the coffee world cannot replace. The main producing regions are Sanani, Matari and Ismaili.

Coffee from the Matari region has inconsistent bean sizes and a wide spread of colors, appearing to be made up of small pea-sized beans alongside empty shell defective beans. The raw beans carry a fermented wine aroma. The fragrance is not as eye-catching as the strawberry sandwich cookie aroma of Ethiopian Red Cherry coffee, but the low-key, calm and full fermented wine aftertaste is unmatched by the natural sun-dried beans of any other country.

Yemen Mocha raw beans contain many empty shell beans, and they vary in size and color depth. This is a characteristic of Yemen Mocha as much as it is the reason its fragrance shifts so much from lot to lot.

On the right are Ethiopian Mist Estate raw beans, consistent in size and color with no empty shells or defective beans. On the left are Yemen Mocha Matari raw beans, inconsistent in size and color, with some empty shell beans.

Light Roast (City Roast): Fresh Fragrance

Before grinding, the beans carry a peanut aroma. After grinding, a fragrance of hawthorn and plum fruit wine emerges. During brewing there is a light fermented taste, and the mouthfeel is varied, with complex layers unfolding in the mouth. A slight grape acidity appears at the changing end in the mouth. The aftertaste is long, with a saliva-inducing sweet return that is mellow and long-lasting, with a Middle Eastern milk tea feeling. The bottom of the cup shows malt sweetness. Light-roasted Yemen Mocha keeps shifting as it cools. It is recommended to brew 7-14 days after roasting, when the complex wild fermented flavor is at its best.

Dark Roast (Full City)

It carries a very obvious gentle wine-like fragrance, the signature of Yemen natural sun-dried beans. The beans hold the sweetness of cocoa chocolate. The entire style turns gentle and reserved, though unexpected aromas may surface at any moment. The aftertaste has a mellow Mocha taste, a fermented fragrance that develops uniformly and continuously in the mouth.

Yemen Mocha is a coffee full of changes and uncertainties. After brewing, first smell the fermented wine aroma at high temperature. As the coffee cools, you begin to taste the varied and complex mouthfeel. At low temperature, the complete acidity and sweetness of the coffee are finally released. After purchase, it is recommended to drink half first to taste the fresh Yemen Matari floral aroma, and let time fully draw out all the wildness hidden in the other half of Yemen Matari without regret.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommended Brewing:

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 90°C

Grind Size: Fuji Royal grinder setting 3.5

Brewing Method: Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, 15g of coffee grounds. First infusion with 25g of water, let bloom for 25s. Second infusion to 120g of water, then stop pouring. Wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to halfway, then continue pouring. Slowly pour water until reaching 225g total. Extraction time around 2:00.

Analysis: A three-stage brewing method clearly distinguishes the front, middle and back-end flavors of the coffee. Because the V60 has many ribs and drains faster, stopping the pour partway through extends the extraction time.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Yemen Mocha is the reference point for natural processing, and the way the whole cherry dries on the tree's fruit is what builds its wild, fermented depth. Brazil takes a middle path between that and the washed method: pulped natural, which FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon is a textbook example of. The cherries are pulped but the mucilage is left on during drying, so the cup keeps a measured sweetness without the heavy fermented notes of a fully natural coffee. Grown at around 1,000 meters in the Cerrado region, this Red Bourbon is roasted medium and shows cream, peanut, toasted bread, caramel and hazelnut, with a rounded body, very little acidity and a faint trace of bitterness. It is flexible enough for a pour-over, a moka pot, an SOE shot, a siphon or a French press.

If you want the sweetness pushed further, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen's Farm Yellow Bourbon comes from Mogiana, close to South Minas, where fertile red volcanic soil feeds the trees. Yellow Bourbon is a genetic mutation of Red Bourbon, and the estate's version ripens to orange-yellow rather than red. It tastes cleaner in fruit than the standard Bourbon, and alongside the chocolate and fruit notes it delivers a distinct sugar-cane sweetness that other regions rarely match—good as a pour-over, in a moka pot, or through a home espresso machine. Both coffees, like Yemen Mocha, reward brewing a week or two after roasting, once the aromatics have settled into balance.