Yemen Mocha Mattari

Yemen Mocha Mattari

Yemen Mocha Mattari - Yemen Mocha

• Country: Yemen
• Region: Mattari
• Altitude: 1,300~1,900m
• Varietal: Typica, Bourbon
• Process: Natural / Sundried

01 | Region Introduction

The History of Yemeni Coffee

Yemen, celebrated since antiquity for its frankincense and spice trade, is the first place in the world where coffee, in the form of Mocha, was ever cultivated on a commercial scale.

Trace the story back far enough and you arrive at even older legends: this is, according to the Bible, the land where Noah built the ark.

Legend also holds that 3,000 years ago the Queen of Sheba led a great caravan laden with gold and spices to Jerusalem to meet King Solomon, and bore him a son. Rumor has it that this son became the first king of Ethiopia.

Be that as it may, history has left its mark. The people of this land are said to carry a fierce sense of pride and an intensely independent spirit to this day.

Yemen has preserved a way of life that dates back thousands of years, and there are said to be many places where the central government's authority simply cannot reach. Ethiopia, just across the sea, also once shipped its coffee through the port of Mocha, which is why Ethiopian natural-processed coffee is often called Mocha (as with Ethiopia Harra Mokka). Yemeni Mocha is the true ancestor of the world coffee trade. Yemen contributed enormously to bringing delicious coffee to the world, and its beans became known as "Arabia Coffee" - the origin of the name "Arabica" we use today.

It is said that in the 17th century, when Europeans first imported coffee and spread it across the world, it passed through the world's greatest coffee port: the port of Mocha.

Today's "Port of Mocha" has long since lost its former prosperity and is now little more than a historic harbor fringed by white sandy beaches.

Even so, its name still travels the world together with the name of coffee itself.

Although Ethiopia was the first country to discover coffee, Yemen was the first to produce it as a large-scale commercial crop. In the early 17th century, the first batch of Yemeni coffee was exported to Europe through the small ancient port of Mocha, and it astonished the Europeans. Because every exported coffee bag had to be stamped with the MOCHA mark to certify that it had been shipped from the port of Mocha, Europeans came to call the wonderful coffee from that port "Mocha Coffee." That is how, in the early days, Mocha became a byword for coffee itself.

Mokhtar Alkhanshali

Credited to the efforts of a scholar-turned-entrepreneur, Yemeni coffee began to spread across the world from the 16th century onward, and for the following 150 years Yemen stood as the world's only source of coffee supply.

But once coffee came to be cultivated on a massive scale worldwide, Yemeni coffee could not escape the so-called "development curve." Today, however, Yemeni coffee has once again climbed to the very top of specialty coffee, and telling that story means telling the story of one man: Mokhtar Alkhanshali.

A Yemeni American, his "change of perspective" on coffee began with a single cup of single-origin pour-over. From that moment he threw himself into the coffee industry, learned professional coffee knowledge, traveled through Yemen's major producing regions, created the "Mokha model" suited to Yemeni coffee cultivation and management, and relentlessly pursued a nearly perfect flavor standard.

Just when he believed he could finally share this rare flavor with the world, the Yemeni civil war broke out, and the entire country was engulfed in fighting that severed every transport route. Owing to the sudden war and a series of "accidents," and determined that the coffee should not be lost, Mokhtar endured countless twists and turns before finally carrying the beans across the ocean to the United States - where they took first place on COFFEE REVIEW's annual list of the top 30 coffee beans with a score of 97!

02 | Processing Method

Ancient Natural Processing

Yemen is the classic example of ancient, natural coffee flavor and the world's only producing country that relies entirely on natural processing. The traditional, water-free processing method has remained unchanged since the 17th century, when Europeans first fell under the spell of wild Mocha. This is closely tied to Yemen's extremely dry climate: coffee is cultivated mainly in the central highlands, where average annual rainfall is only 400-750mm, far below the 1,500-2,000mm that Arabica ideally requires.

Yemeni coffee grows on steep terrain with little rain, poor soil, and insufficient sunlight. These unique and difficult conditions - normally hostile to coffee - are precisely what have created the irreplaceable Yemen Mocha. The main producing regions are Sanani, Mattari, and Ismaili.

The Mattari region lies in the highlands west of the capital, at an altitude of 2,000-2,400 meters. It is the highest-altitude producing area in Yemen, but also the most remote and hardest to reach; farmers often have to wait some time after harvesting before they can transport their coffee out.

Because water is so scarce, farmers still cannot introduce more advanced washed processing. The wild intensity of the flavor surpasses even Harar coffee, making Yemen the best place on earth to taste coffee's ancient character.

The central highlands of Yemen are a jumble of rolling mountains and rugged terrain. Smallholder farmers mostly practice scattered planting: a few trees on steep slopes, dozens on terraces or cliff edges. Each plot has its own soil and microclimate, so the aromatic compounds differ from place to place.

The natural processing used by Yemeni farmers is rougher than Ethiopia's - they simply spread the cherries out on rooftops to dry! This is very different from the refined natural processing of Yirgacheffe or Sidamo, where carefully picked red cherries are laid out on raised African beds. It is the main reason Yemen's wild flavor is so pronounced.

Yemen's ancient natural method works like this: fully ripe cherries are harvested by hand, then the freshly picked cherries are placed directly in a dedicated drying yard or on the compacted earthen courtyard in front of the house to dry in the sun. During drying, the cherries are generally turned with a wooden rake to make sure every cherry dries evenly. After about twenty days, once the coffee is fully dried, the dried pulp and skin are removed to extract the beans.

Yemeni coffee offers rich, complex, wild, and mellow flavors, with pronounced fermentation character and lower acidity. On top of that, Yemeni coffee carries an unpredictable variable (the timing of the seasonal rains) that makes each harvest a gamble. Calling it the world's most singular coffee is no exaggeration.

Refined Natural Processing

Mokhtar Alkhanshali has also raised the beans of Yemen's Mocha region to a new level with more refined natural processing, and the beans speak for themselves with their flavor.

03 | Green Bean Analysis

The grades of Mocha are divided by growing region, such as Sanani.

Coffee from the Mattari region has the reputation of being "unattractive": the beans are uneven in size and vary considerably in color, looking like a mix of small peaberries and empty, defective beans.

Because the bean shape is very small, some people call it small Mocha. Mocha is a flat bean, not a round bean. The beans may be small, but they are intensely fragrant and rich.

04 | Roasting Analysis

Yemen Mocha is a relatively low-moisture green coffee. Considering the uneven size of the beans, the charge temperature for low-moisture beans should not be set too high. Steamed for 30 seconds, damper opened to 3, until the color of the green beans turns light green or white, damper opened to 4, and after first crack opened to 5 (maximum).

FrontStreet Coffee suggests keeping good data records before roasting: the moisture content and density of the coffee beans, origin, processing method, roasting environment temperature and humidity in the roastery, and so on, and planning your roasting curve in advance. Record the relevant chemical and physical changes during the roast itself; this will help you better understand the final result and steadily improve your roasting curve.

Roaster: Yangjia 800N, charge 550g green beans

Roasting curve:

Preheat the roaster to 170°C, damper set to 3. After 1 minute, adjust heat to 140°C, damper unchanged. Roast until 5'00", when temperature reaches 147.2°C, the bean surface turns yellow, the grassy smell completely disappears, and dehydration is complete; reduce heat to 110°C and change the damper to 4;

At the 8'00 minute, ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, and the toast smell clearly turns to coffee aroma - the prelude to first crack. From this point, listen carefully for the sound of first crack. First crack starts at 8'23"; adjust heat to 60°C and open the damper fully (reduce heat very carefully - do not cut it so much that the crackling stops), and drop the beans at 197.9°C.

Cupping Report:

Medium roast City (caramel aroma): Before grinding, the beans give off a peanut aroma. After grinding, there is a caramel fragrance. During slurping, the layers are complex, with a hint of grape acidity appearing at the end of the mouthful. The spice aftertaste is long, sweet and juicy, with a rounded Middle Eastern milk-tea feeling that lingers. The cup bottom shows malt sweetness. Medium-roasted Yemen Mocha will continue to evolve after roasting. It is recommended to brew it 7-14 days after roasting, when the complex wild fermentation flavor is at its best.

04 | Brewing Analysis

The condition of the coffee bed in pour-over cannot be ignored - this must be emphasized! The coffee bed plays a subtle but vital role: it provides resistance, allowing the hot water to stay in the filter cup long enough to ensure the flavor compounds are fully extracted.

A medium-roast coffee bed must also retain a certain supporting force to perform this "blocking" function. To keep the bed's resistance from weakening, you must master the "strength of the water stream," the "position of the pour," and add a "stable circular pouring technique" to form a complete set of "pouring skills."

1. Filter: V60
2. Water temperature: 88°C
3. Grind size: Fuji grinder setting 4
4. Roast level: Medium roast
5. Steaming time: 25 seconds

Flavor: Balanced, chocolate, persistent caramel sweetness in the aftertaste

FrontStreet Coffee suggested technique: 15g coffee, Fuji grinder setting 4, V60 filter, 88-89°C water temperature, first pour 30g water for a 25-second bloom, pour to 104g then pause, wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to half before continuing to pour, slowly pour up to 220g total water, avoid the last 5g, water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, total extraction time about 2:00 (counted from the end of the bloom)

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the wild, ancient character of Yemen Mocha appeals to you, the washed Yirgacheffe from FrontStreet Coffee is an excellent next step. It delivers clear jasmine florals and a bright citrus acidity - a lighter, more elegant profile with a gentle tea-like finish, like a crisp, clean lemon tea. It is the ideal entry point into Ethiopian specialty coffee.

For drinkers who love natural processing, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Program natural coffee is a must-try. The cherries are dried in the sun for two full weeks with meticulous sorting at every stage, producing a clean yet intensely fruity cup with notes of peach, cocoa, honey, and lemon. The FrontStreet Flower Queen (Huakui) natural, from the Hambella district of Guji in Sidamo, is another standout: dried on raised beds for 21 days, it offers a light fermented wine aroma, florals, citrus, and mango, with thick body and a long finish of honey sweetness, cocoa, and spice.

Whichever you choose, FrontStreet Coffee recommends roasting these beans to a medium-light level and brewing them with soft, steady circular pours so that their delicate florals and fruit acidity shine through in the cup.