New Coffee Bean Arrival: Ethiopia Yirgacheffe

New Coffee, New FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe!

FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe is a name that even people with only a passing interest in coffee already know. This small town in southwestern Ethiopia is world-renowned for the unique floral and citrus flavors of its coffee, and its highly poetic name adds to the appeal.

Yir-ga-che-fe: what a beautiful name, and the coffee lives up to it. A good cup of FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe is like a bright spring day with flourishing grass, overflowing with floral aromas. On entry, the whole mouth becomes a spring field of flowers, followed closely by bright citrus. Some like to compare it to orange juice or tangerine juice, but its classic mocha flavor remains the dominant note. The wonderful combination of soft bitterness and sweetness, and of acidity and sweetness, makes the mocha charm linger longer and longer in the finish. Orange juice, tangerine juice and flower-fruit tea simply do not have that depth.

Why Do Yirgacheffe Coffees Taste Different?

Many friends wonder why the Yirgacheffe they drink at one shop and another tastes different, or why the Yirgacheffe they had before was very sour while this one is not.

This is something every coffee beginner should understand. Although they are all called Yirgacheffe, altitude, climate and soil differences among the small production areas, along with differences in processing method and green bean grade, make Yirgacheffe's flavors vary enormously. It is much like Anxi Tieguanyin: different mountains, different processing plants, different harvest times and different roasting methods produce very different cups.

As an agricultural product, Yirgacheffe green beans are therefore divided by region and grade, and quality and price vary enormously between grades. Many people know the Yirgacheffe G1, G2 and G3 designations, which are its grade subdivisions. Yirgacheffe Idido, Kochere, Konga and Biloya are subdivisions based on production area or processing plant and cooperative. Not every coffee called Yirgacheffe is delicious: a low-grade Yirgacheffe lacks floral aromas and wonderful fruit flavors, tastes thin, and can even show irritating acidity, a tongue-biting astringency and an unpleasant rotten-sweet-potato flavor.

Special Features of This Batch of FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe

So what is special about this batch of FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe, the Ethiopia Yirgacheffe G1 Gedeb?

Its origin, its grade, its flavor:

Gedeb is a region 60 kilometers south of Yirgacheffe town, named after the local Gedeb people. The Kokanna processing plant in Kokanna town centrally processes cherries collected from around Gedeb through refined washed processing and exports them under the name Gedeb. The cherries collected here are all grown at high altitudes around 1,900 meters. The plant strictly selects ripe red fruit, which undergoes 36 to 48 hours of washed fermentation, then dries on raised beds for 10-12 days to reach 11.5% moisture content. Before the green beans are exported they are selected several times to minimize defective beans. As a result this lot passed the G1 grade certification of the ECX, the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange.

Tasting Profile and Brewing Recommendations

Beans this refined easily withstand light roasting. Even at a medium roast level there is no sourness or any off-flavor. The refreshing, bright acidity can only be described as lively. It includes both lemon and orange acidity, recalls the sweet-sour taste of strawberry and carries a hint of peach juice, quite unlike the simplicity of earlier Yirgas. After a moment the acids gradually fade, giving way to endless fruit flavors and lingering sweetness.

In winter this taste may seem too light and thin, but as the weather warms, nothing suits the season better. Made as iced coffee in particular, the sweet-sour, refreshing coolness followed by Yirgacheffe's lingering aftertaste is wonderful. For anyone who particularly dislikes acidity, the satisfaction index may be lower; you can reduce the perceived acidity with a higher water temperature or a longer extraction time, which is a judgment call for the barista.

Conclusion

In summary, although this Gedeb has slightly less richness than FrontStreet Coffee's natural-processed Yirgacheffe, its lively acidity, pure taste and clean finish still represent the level of FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe. Anyone who loves Yirgacheffe should savor its distinctiveness.

FrontStreet Coffee Ethiopia Yirgacheffe G1 Gedeb Profile

Region: Yirgacheffe Gedeb

Processing Plant: Kokonna

Altitude: Around 1900m

Variety: Ethiopian Indigenous

Processing Method: Refined washed, sun-dried

Harvest Period: November to January of the following year

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

This Gedeb represents the washed side of Yirgacheffe at its cleanest, and it is an excellent counterpart to FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Red Cherry, which uses only fully ripe red cherries dried whole on raised beds for three to five weeks. The natural process keeps the classic Yirgacheffe character while adding tropical fruit: citrus-like acidity, a berry-juice quality, honey sweetness and a creamy smoothness.

For the archetypal Yirgacheffe profile, FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe daily coffee is the benchmark, known for white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity and a tea-like body at a friendly price. FrontStreet Coffee's Gedingding Cooperative, from the Woka area at the southeastern end of Yirgacheffe, is another washed lot prized for clean citrus and lemon acidity and jasmine fragrance with none of the traditional bitterness.

FrontStreet Coffee brews these coffees with a V60 dripper, 90-91°C water, 15g of coffee and a 1:15 ratio, grinding to about the size of fine sugar, roughly 80% through a No. 20 standard sieve or setting 10 on an EK43s. Pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, then pour to 125g, and when the water level drops to two-thirds of the coffee bed add the remaining water to 225g, finishing the pour at about 1 minute 35 seconds and completing the drip between 2:00 and 2:10.