Honey Fruit Sun-Dried Yirgacheffe Coffee vs Regular Sun-Dried Yirgacheffe - How to Brew Honey Fruit Sun-Dried Yirgacheffe

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Yirgacheffe: Ethiopia's Legendary Coffee Region

Yirgacheffe is one of Ethiopia's most storied small towns. Anyone who loves single-origin coffee has almost certainly tasted a coffee grown here.

Even people who are new to coffee have likely come across the name while browsing Weibo or a coffee account. Yirgacheffe began life as a sub-region inside Ethiopia's Sidamo coffee area.

Because the beans grown there outperformed those from other sub-regions on flavor, the area was split off and now stands alongside Sidamo as one of Ethiopia's main coffee-producing regions.

The Foge Village and Honey Fruit Natural Process

In the small village of Foge, within the Yirgacheffe region, there is a coffee processed by the "Honey Fruit Natural" method. Its quality was so good that it avoided being sent to the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) to be blended and sold with other coffees.

The ECX Trading System

Before 2017, whether beans were processed by farmers themselves or by cooperatives, they could only be sold through the ECX.

Every bag of coffee delivered to the ECX could be sold, and the exchange's operations helped prevent prices from collapsing through cutthroat competition among farmers.

Under those rules, though, distinctively flavored, high-quality beans were hard to single out and therefore could not command a high price.

Then, in March 2017, Ethiopia's prime minister approved a reform that would change the fate of Ethiopian coffee. It stated clearly that cooperatively run processing stations have the right to export coffee directly, and it allowed top-tier growing areas to be separated out.

In practice, that meant coffee hunters and green coffee buyers could purchase directly from a cooperative once they recognized the quality of its beans.

These beans are also spared from being blended with other coffees. This Yirgacheffe Sirinaga natural coffee is exactly the product of that reform.

After our green bean partners cupped this coffee, they brought it directly from the Foge processing station in Sirinaga, Yirgacheffe town.

Foge Processing

Around the Foge processing station, roughly 300 neighboring coffee-farming households bring their harvested cherries for processing.

The station focuses mainly on washed processing; natural-processed beans are rare here, and specially processed beans are rarer still.

The coffee recommended here is precisely this uncommon "Yirgacheffe Sirinaga Foge Processing Station Honey Fruit Natural."

Honey Fruit Natural Processing Method

When farmers pick coffee cherries, they use small sugar-content testers to measure the fruit. Once the cherries reach the sugar standard, they are picked immediately so the fruit never over-ferments.

The cup has rich, acidic blue-fruit flavors and a mellow red-wine fermentation aroma on the first sip, memorable from the very first taste.

Coffee picked at just the right sugar content gives you a sweet start.

How to Brew Yirgacheffe Coffee [Honey Fruit Natural] Well?

FrontStreet Coffee Pour-Over Reference:

Weigh 15g of [Honey Fruit Natural] grounds and grind at a medium setting. The particles should be slightly coarser than table salt. We use a BG grinder setting of 5R (60% pass rate on the standard sieve), a water temperature of 90°C, and a V60 dripper.

Using hot water from the pour-over kettle, circle clockwise around the center of the dripper. Start timing when the brew begins. Reach 30g of water in 15 seconds, then stop pouring. When the timer hits 1 minute, start the second pour. As before, circle clockwise around the center of the dripper. Keep the stream off the point where the grounds meet the filter paper, or you will create channeling.

When you reach the outermost ring of grounds, leave one ring, then circle back toward the center. At 2 minutes and 20 seconds, reach 220g and the brew is complete.

Japanese Ice Pour-Over [Honey Fruit Natural]

FrontStreet Coffee Ice Pour-Over [Honey Fruit Natural] Reference:

Yirgacheffe Coffee [Honey Fruit Natural], light-medium roast, BG grinder setting 5M (67% pass rate on the standard sieve).

20 grams of grounds, 150 grams of ice cubes, 150 grams of hot water. The water temperature should be 1°C higher than the 90°C used for the regular pour-over, so 91°C. The everyday grind is Little Fuji setting 3.5; iced pour-over goes slightly finer, at Little Fuji setting 3.

Bloom with 40 grams of water for 30 seconds.

Pour in segments: a first segment of 60 grams of water, then a second of 40 grams. Use a fairly thin but high stream and stir firmly so the grounds roll fully, but be careful not to let the water level rise too high or touch the edge of the filter paper.

Total extraction time is about 2.5 minutes, similar to the regular extraction for 20 grams of grounds.

END

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

This honey fruit natural is a textbook example of the Yirgacheffe character, and if it is what you enjoy, FrontStreet Coffee has a few entry points worth trying. The FrontStreet Everyday Washed Yirgacheffe is the classic starting place, known for white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like body, all at a friendly price. Yirgacheffe itself is a small town in southern Ethiopia's Sidamo province, sitting at roughly 1,700 to 2,100 meters, with coffee trees planted above 1,800 meters; the name became so famous that the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange separated it from Sidamo in 2010.

If you want the washed style at its most precise, the FrontStreet Gudibe Cooperative coffee comes from the Worka area at the southeastern edge of Yirgacheffe. It was once part of the Worka cooperative under the YCFCU alliance before becoming a single-origin lot in its own right, and it is washed in the traditional way, giving clean, bright citrus and lemon acidity with jasmine fragrance. To compare the natural side directly against this honey fruit lot, try the FrontStreet Natural Red Cherry, made from fully ripe cherries dried in the fruit for three to five weeks, which layers classic Yirgacheffe flavors with tropical fruit, citrus acidity, berry juice, honey sweetness, and a creamy mouthfeel.