How to Pour-Over Natural Process Yirgacheffe Aricha Coffee Beans_ Recommended Water Temperature for Natural Process Aricha Coffee Brewing

FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe - ARICHA

Aricha takes its name from the Aricha kebele in Ethiopia's Yirgacheffe producing region. In a village called Aricha kebele, not far east of Yirgacheffe, Aricha lies about 8 kilometers from the center of Yirgacheffe town. A kebele is Ethiopia's smallest administrative unit, with a scale of about 500 households (equivalent to 3500-4000 people), similar in size to a community.

Most coffee in this region comes from wild varieties in the local native forests, along with varieties naturally cultivated by the local indigenous people. The coffee tree varieties here are therefore very diverse, often numbering as many as 20-30 varieties in a single batch. Because the cherries are harvested from native forests above 1850 meters in altitude, they cannot be named after an estate, so they are named after the harvesting area: Aricha.

Origin Introduction

Yirgacheffe was originally a medium-sized town within Ethiopia's Sidamo producing region, serving as the local coffee bean distribution center and transportation hub.

High Altitude:

The town of Yirgacheffe is surrounded by various coffee-producing villages, with plateaus ranging from 1750 to 2400 meters in altitude, making it the highest coffee producing area in the country. Because the altitude here is generally higher than elsewhere in Sidamo Province, the coffee produced has a very distinctive flavor that has been well received by the market. It is renowned for its rich, characteristic fruit aroma and high quality, and its popularity has risen so much that it is now treated as an independent producing region in the industry.

Organic Cultivation:

Local coffee trees are all organically grown (because the farmers are too poor to afford synthetic fertilizers), and the beans are relatively small. Most have now been converted to washed processing, giving a clean flavor with rich floral aroma and citrus, lemon-like fruit fragrance.

High Grade:

This batch of FrontStreet Coffee's Aricha is rated G1, the highest grade by ECX. From green bean appearance, consistency, and freshness to dry aroma and flavor, it is quite excellent. (ECX itself will be covered in another article.)

Variety:

This batch of FrontStreet Coffee's sun-dried Yirgacheffe Aricha is specifically Ethiopia's heirloom varieties, produced at the Kebel Aricha processing station and named Aricha after it. There are about 650-700 small coffee farmers nearby. Farmers bring ripe cherries here for processing in exchange for cash. After the station screens usable cherries, they are placed directly on racks for sun-drying. For the first few days of drying they are turned every 2-3 hours to prevent over-fermentation. After 4-6 weeks of sun-drying, workers use machines to scrape off the outer pulp depending on the weather and temperature, then transport the beans to Addis Ababa for storage. Sun-dried beans are usually stored in parchment form until dehulling before export, to safeguard green bean quality.

Parchment Beans

The defect rate of this batch of green beans is relatively low for a sun-dried coffee, and the aroma is excellent too. The default is a medium-light roast for delivery. The dry powder shows a rich berry aroma with a hint of candy sweetness. Tasting it, you feel a light, refreshing wine sensation, still with typical citrus aroma and a very comfortable sweet-and-sour balance. The aftertaste is like the concentrated essence of orange candy, full of a happy, childhood-innocent feeling.

Green Beans Before Roasting

Flavor: Dried strawberry, passion fruit, black plum, tropical fruit sweetness, fruit wine aroma, brown sugar syrup

Mouthfeel: Excellent sweet and sour sensation, bright, refreshing, and multi-layered

Roast Level: Medium-light roast

How to Brew FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe Coffee [FrontStreet Coffee Sun-dried Yirgacheffe Aricha] Well?

FrontStreet Coffee Hand-pour Reference: Weigh 15g of FrontStreet Coffee Sun-dried Yirgacheffe Aricha coffee powder and grind it to medium fineness. The ground particles should be slightly coarser than table salt. We use BG grinder setting 5R (standard sieve pass rate 60%), water temperature 90°C, and extract with a V60 dripper.

Pour the hot water from the pour-over kettle in clockwise circles centered on the middle of the dripper. Start timing when brewing begins. Brew the coffee to 30g in 15 seconds, then stop pouring. When the time reaches 1 minute, pour the second time. For the second pour, as before, pour clockwise in circles centered on the middle of the dripper. The water stream should not hit where the coffee powder meets the filter paper, to avoid channeling.

When pouring to the outermost circle of coffee powder, leave one circle, then brew circle by circle toward the middle. At 2 minutes 20 seconds, brew the coffee to 220g, and the brewing is complete.

Japanese Style Ice Pour-over [FrontStreet Coffee Sun-dried Yirgacheffe Aricha]

FrontStreet Coffee Ice Pour-over [FrontStreet Coffee Sun-dried Yirgacheffe Aricha] Reference:

FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe coffee [FrontStreet Coffee Sun-dried Yirgacheffe Aricha], light-medium roast, BG grinder setting 5M (standard sieve pass rate 67%).

20g powder, 150g ice cubes, 150g hot water. The water temperature should be 1°C higher than the normal pour-over recommendation of 90°C. Normal grinding uses a Fuji 3.5 setting, while ice pour-over uses a slightly finer half setting — Fuji 3.

Bloom with 40g water for 30 seconds.

Staged pouring: a first segment of 60g water and a second segment of 40g. Use a relatively fine but high pouring column, stirring and impacting forcefully so the coffee powder rolls fully, but be careful not to let the liquid level get too high or to hit the filter paper at the edge.

The entire extraction time is approximately 2 and a half minutes (similar to the normal extraction time for 20g of powder).

END

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

This natural Yirgacheffe is one of the region's most distinctive expressions, and to explore how far Yirgacheffe can go, FrontStreet Coffee suggests tasting a few lots side by side. Start with the FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe, the everyday staple most people meet first — white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like body at a price that makes specialty coffee easy to try.

From there, the FrontStreet Gotiti Cooperative coffee shows the region from another angle. Grown in the Worka area at the southeastern end of Yirgacheffe and processed in the traditional washed style, it has none of the usual bitterness, just fresh, bright citrus and lemon acidity with jasmine fragrance. Medium-light roasting reveals green tea and honey, and it works as a pour-over, a cold brew, or an espresso.

For a fruitier counterpoint to the Aricha, the FrontStreet Natural Red Cherry picks only fully ripe, defect-free cherries, sorts them, and lays them straight onto raised beds. In the first few days they are turned every 2-3 hours so they dry evenly and never over-ferment. After three to five weeks of sun-drying, the fruit is removed and the beans go into storage. Because the cherries dry with the fruit on, the cup keeps the classic Yirgacheffe character while adding tropical fruit aromatics, citrus acidity, a berry-juice body, honey sweetness, and a creamy smoothness.

For brewing, FrontStreet Coffee suggests a V60 with water at 90-91°C, 15g of coffee, and a 1:15 ratio, ground to a fine-sugar consistency (about 80% passing a #20 sieve). Pour 30g for a 30-second bloom, then pour to 95g (around 125g on the scale) over about a minute. When the water level falls to two-thirds of the coffee bed, add the remaining 100g (around 225g on the scale), finishing at about 1'35". Let it drain by 2'00"-2'10", then remove the dripper.