How Does Ethiopian Coffee Taste? What Are the Characteristics of Ethiopian Coffee Beans?

For those who particularly love African coffee beans, you may have easily noticed that compared to Kenyan beans, Ethiopian beans are generally more varied in size and noticeably less uniform. Whether it's Yirgacheffe or Sidamo, whether washed or natural processed, sometimes observing coffee beans from the same batch reveals significant differences in roasting color and particle size.

Why Are Ethiopian Coffee Beans Always of Different Sizes?

Those who frequently drink Ethiopian coffee should have heard of the variety called "Heirloom Native Varieties." Most Ethiopian varieties are named this way, primarily because Ethiopia has so many varieties that it's like a natural gene bank for Arabica. On one hand, there are numerous varieties, making identification and classification difficult; on the other hand, the Ethiopian government,出于保护考虑, is unwilling to disclose information about these varieties, so they are collectively called "Heirloom Native Varieties."

Understanding How Ethiopian Coffee Beans Are Cultivated and Harvested

Generally, coffee farmers may grow multiple varieties simultaneously and might select better varieties for separate sale. Ethiopia is particularly unique in this regard. In this country, most coffee grows in wild or semi-wild states in fields, backyards, or under forests. What farmers actually harvest is a large mix of many different natural varieties.

Wild coffee trees especially like to grow under forests. Trees that provide shade for coffee are called "Shade Trees"; this cultivation method is known as "Shade-grown Coffee." The advantage is that it reduces ecological impact, and diverse biodiversity helps suppress pests and diseases. In some regions, local food crops such as bananas are used to provide shade for coffee, which can be described as serving dual purposes.

There are nearly 2,000 recorded coffee varieties in Ethiopia, including 1,927 native varieties and 128 introduced foreign varieties. So judging by appearance alone, Ethiopian coffee varieties are like a "grand garden" with everything imaginable - long, short, thin, fat...

Long-shaped beans can be found throughout Ethiopia's coffee-growing regions. Based on observed proportions, western Jimma, including Limmu and Kaffa, has more long-shaped varieties, while the proportion is smaller in Sidamo or Yirgacheffe.

Small-grain varieties have a more rounded appearance and are very small, mostly between 14-15 mesh size. This variety should be the most familiar to us, as we often see them in Sidamo and Yirgacheffe. I have also seen them in a Harrar sample and in green coffee beans sold locally in Jimma. Compared to other regions, Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, and surrounding Arsi and Guji have more cultivation of these small-grain native varieties.

(In addition to the numerous coffee varieties, cultivation methods also affect the mixed variety situation in Ethiopian coffee beans.)

Ethiopian coffee cultivation is divided by scale and mode into:

• Forest Coffee (8-10%): Coffee trees coexist with other crops in pristine forests without any artificial management. Farmers regularly harvest coffee cherries.
• Semi-Forest Coffee (30-35%): Coffee tree cultivation areas are between forests and areas around farmers' living spaces. Coffee trees, like forest coffee, are naturally produced varieties. Farmers manage the coffee tree cultivation areas and plant other economic crops.
• Garden Coffee (50-55%): Coffee trees are planted around farmers' living areas and are mostly self-cultivated by farmers.
• Plantation Coffee (5-6%): Large private growers with more processing facilities and production capacity.

Most coffee cultivation in Sidamo and Yirgacheffe belongs to the garden coffee model, where coffee farmers plant coffee trees near their living areas, harvest them themselves during the harvest season, and then send them to nearby water-source-based processing plants for unified processing (or they are uniformly purchased by middlemen). Except for a few coffee plantations with sufficient strength to independently plant, harvest, and process green coffee beans, many coffee beans from different regions and varieties are centrally processed by processing plants and then sent to auction houses for official evaluation and grading.

This is why many Ethiopian coffee beans are named and distinguished by processing plants or cooperatives, and it's also one of the reasons why the same batch of coffee beans contains multiple coffee varieties. Even coffee beans produced by the same processing plant may show significant flavor differences between different batches.

Ethiopian Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's freshly roasted single-origin Ethiopian coffee beans - such as Yirgacheffe and Sidamo coffee - offer full guarantees in both brand and quality, suitable for brewing with various equipment. More importantly, they offer extremely high value for money. A half-pound (227 grams) bag costs only about 70-90 yuan. Calculating based on 200ml per cup of single-origin coffee with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, one bag can make 15 cups of specialty coffee, with each cup costing only about 5-6 yuan. Compared to cafés selling single cups for dozens of yuan, this represents extremely high value for money.

Related recommendations: Flavor characteristics of Ethiopian coffee producing regions_Ethiopian Yirgacheffe specialty coffee

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