Ethiopia 2024 Harvest Season Authentic Guji Coffee Bean 8.0 Flavor Profile & Characteristics Introduction - How to Brew Sidamo Guji Coffee for Best Taste

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What is "Hua Kui" Coffee?

Hua Kui, literally translated, means "flower champion" - a coffee bean that should be "overflowing with floral fragrance." In reality, this is not the case. FrontStreet Coffee's Hua Kui coffee beans do not have strong floral aromas; instead, their fruit aromas are more prominent, such as passion fruit, strawberry, mango, jackfruit, and citrus. Only natural processed coffee from the Buku Abel processing station can be considered "Hua Kui," which is why Buku Abel is also known as the "Hua Kui Estate." In February 2017, a natural processed coffee from Hambela, processed by Buku Abel, won the Ethiopia National Taste of Harvest Competition.

The Rise of Hua Kui

Four months later, in the finals of the World Brewers Cup China region, Li Jianfei became the runner-up using this Ethiopian natural processed coffee. The competition results caused a sensation because it broke Geisha's monopoly in brewing competitions, becoming the only coffee capable of competing with it.

In the same year, Chinese green coffee bean importer Hongshun brought this coffee to China. Because contestant Li Jianfei used these beans to defeat most Geisha varieties, and the English pronunciation of "Geisha" is the same as "Geisha" (meaning geisha) in Japanese, Hongshun boldly named this coffee "Hua Kui" - in ancient times, Hua Kui was the highest rank among geishas.

Origin and Growing Region

This coffee bean, named "Hua Kui," comes from the Guji region of Ethiopia. It was formerly part of the Sidamo coffee region but was established as a separate new region by the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) in 2010. The Guji region is located southeast of Yirgacheffe and is an area with complex topographical changes including towering mountains, valleys, and plains. Its average altitude is above 1,800 meters, giving the Guji region all the excellent conditions for producing specialty coffee.

Hambela is a sub-region of the Guji area. FrontStreet Coffee understands that there are currently over 20 processing stations of various scales in the Hambela region. Dintu Village is the center of Hambela town, which is adjacent to Shakiso and located in the southern part of the Oromia region, close to Sidamo and Guji. This area has many pits that were originally used for gold mining, resulting in many holes in this coffee growing area, making it dangerous to walk through. Like the Shakiso style, Dintu Village is a unique producing area in Sidamo coffee, even within Sidamo it's a remote region far from most coffee producing areas. Therefore, it also faces the challenge of requiring manual labor to maintain the growing areas and harvest coffee.

Buku Abel Processing Station

Buku Abel is a small mountain village surrounded by mountains. It originally had no estate or processing station. Everything began with the lush, verdant heirloom coffee trees on the mountain behind the village. These heirloom coffee trees belong to unique Ethiopian varieties. By December each year, they bear abundant red coffee cherries. Villagers go to the back mountain, pick the red fruits, screen out defects, and then place them on African drying beds at the village entrance for natural processing.

The processed coffee beans are exchanged for money, becoming the economic source that sustains the entire village. This cycle repeats year after year, and the area behind Buku Abel mountain gradually became the Buku Abel coffee estate. According to FrontStreet Coffee's understanding, coffee farmers harvest coffee fruits from December to January each year, and the coffee cherries must reach a sugar content of over 30% before natural processing can begin. The natural process is very meticulous - the first two days must maintain the humidity of the coffee cherries to allow thorough fermentation of their fruit sugars. When temperatures are high at noon, timely shading is necessary to prevent sun damage to the cherries, which would hinder fermentation. Then at night, to prevent sudden rain, thick plastic is used for wrapping.

Coffee cherry fermentation and dehydration require relatively low temperatures. After 18 days of natural drying, the moisture content of the green coffee beans drops to around 13%, then natural processing stops and they are placed in jute bags in the warehouse. On this basis, green bean resting continues for about fifty days with further dehydration. When the moisture content of green coffee beans reaches about 11%, they are transported to the processing station for subsequent processing such as hulling.

Flavor Profile Evolution

Basic Flavor Profile of FrontStreet Coffee's Hua Kui

The 2017 Hua Kui coffee beans had a very rich strawberry flavor. Because of this, many friends who experienced Hua Kui's flavor that year were deeply impressed and developed trust in this coffee bean.

Basically, the terms DW company, Buku processing station, Beijing Hongshun, and Hua Kui coffee are linked together. But we all know that coffee beans are agricultural products, and their flavor will have subtle differences depending on the climate and growing conditions of each year. As the coffee producer DW company, the Buku processing station, and Chinese importer Hongshun all understand this well, they launched Hua Kui 2.0 the following year, indicating that the flavor differs from the 2017 Hua Kui coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee introduces Hua Kui green beans every year. When comparing FrontStreet Coffee's 2017 Hua Kui, 2018 Hua Kui 2.0, and 2019 Hua Kui 3.0, it was found that while FrontStreet Coffee's Hua Kui 2.0 and 3.0 still retained strawberry flavor, it became increasingly weak.

Subsequently, DW company expanded production scale and acquired several nearby processing stations. Currently, there are four processing stations: "Buku Abel," "Buku Saysay," "Haro Soresa," and "Tirtiro Goye." This greatly increased processing capacity, and the origin range of coffee cherries used for processing also expanded.

With DW company's annual processing station expansion and production growth, its flavor also shows clear differences from the 2017 Hua Kui flavor. Strictly speaking, only natural processed coffee beans from the "Buku Abel" processing station can be called Hua Kui coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee found that the main source of the 2017 Hua Kui aroma was some particularly small-grained varieties in FrontStreet Coffee's Hua Kui coffee beans, and similar small-grained coffee was also found in the 2018 and 2019 Hua Kui varieties. Starting from 2020, the processing station began to separately process the small-grained Hua Kui again. Therefore, the small-grained Hua Kui does not belong to the [X.0] series. From 2020, DW company separately processed the small-grained varieties to form small-grained Hua Kui coffee beans.

By 2021's FrontStreet Coffee Hua Kui 5.0 coffee beans, their flavor was completely different from the 2017 FrontStreet Coffee Hua Kui. FrontStreet Coffee's Hua Kui 5.0 coffee flavor leaned more toward citrus fruit notes, and no longer had that strawberry flavor from the original year. However, it still captivated the taste buds of many friends.

Quality Challenges in 2022

Coming to June 2022, FrontStreet Coffee also received Hongshun's FrontStreet Coffee Hua Kui 6.0 batch, but this FrontStreet Coffee Hua Kui 6.0 was somewhat disappointing. When FrontStreet Coffee received the green beans, they found that the green beans contained many flat beans with plump but incomplete granules. After roasting, FrontStreet Coffee's baristas screen for defective beans, and even after screening, we can still pick out many flat beans, cracked beans, incomplete beans, and irregular beans. (In the picture below, FrontStreet Coffee randomly sampled 15g and could still pick out quite a few defective beans)

For this reason, FrontStreet Coffee believed that such coffee beans would be difficult for the public to accept, so FrontStreet Coffee sought out coffee beans processed by Buku Abel this year (not imported by Hongshun), which had full granules, complete particles, and few defects.

Through cupping: Hongshun's Hua Kui 6.0 flavor is berries, honey, passion fruit, with prominent sweetness.

The 2022 new harvest season Hua Kui coffee bean flavor is orange blossom, citrus, honey, grapefruit, with very strong juice-like sensation.

Brewing Recommendations from FrontStreet Coffee

Brewing Parameters

Dose: 15 grams of coffee
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
Water temperature: 90°C
Grind size: 80% passing through Chinese standard #20 sieve
Dripper: V60
Brewing method: 30g water bloom for 30 seconds, then directly pour to 125g in the center, segment when seeing the coffee bed, then pour to 225g, remove the dripper when seeing the coffee bed, total extraction time: 2 minutes.

The reason for blooming the coffee grounds for 30 seconds is to allow the carbon dioxide in the coffee particles to fully release, thereby enabling more thorough flavor extraction afterward. The coffee beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are roasted within 5 days. When friends receive the goods, the coffee beans have already undergone a resting period of 4 to 7 days, which is when the flavor is at its best. When brewing at this time, friends can see the blooming "hamburger" during the bloom stage.

Additionally, some friends don't have coffee grinding equipment at home. FrontStreet Coffee also provides grinding services for this purpose. FrontStreet Coffee needs to remind everyone that after coffee beans are ground into powder, degassing activity becomes more active, and flavor substances dissipate faster. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee suggests buying whole beans and grinding fresh before brewing.

Recent Harvest Updates

2023 Hua Kui 7.0

In 2023, Hongshun Coffee also released the new harvest season of Hua Kui, named "Hua Kui 7.0." Compared to the declining reputation of 2022's Hua Kui 6.0, this year's Hua Kui 7.0 series seems determined to save the reputation of the Hua Kui series. According to FrontStreet Coffee's understanding, the first batch of Hua Kui 7.0 will arrive at Shanghai Port on April 17th, meaning Hua Kui 7.0 will be available to the market around April 24th. The second batch of Hua Kui 7.0 will arrive at the port in May.

The new harvest season's FrontStreet Coffee Hua Kui 7.0 coffee beans arrived on schedule in May 2023! FrontStreet Coffee also obtained the green beans at the first opportunity and conducted comparative observations and cupping after roasting.

Compared to FrontStreet Coffee's Hua Kui 6.0, FrontStreet Coffee's Hua Kui 7.0 green beans have a lower defect rate, and the overall situation is much better than 6.0. FrontStreet Coffee conducts careful selection both before and after roasting completion. After cupping and confirmation, FrontStreet Coffee's new harvest season Hua Kui 7.0 flavor performance is fruit fermentation aroma, berries, citrus, honey.

2024 Hua Kui 8.0

Coming to 2024, Hua Kui has unconsciously entered its 8th year since debut, and the latest harvest season batch also follows the multi-year naming convention, launched as "Hua Kui 8.0." Tasting the new Hua Kui has become a top priority for "die-hard fans."

The latest harvest season's FrontStreet Coffee Hua Kui 8.0 shows richer fruit aromas than 7.0 in its dry fragrance, with complex aromas like guava, jackfruit, apricot, preserved fruit, citrus, and floral notes. When hot water is poured, honey and berry sweet aromas can be smelled. Through slurping, FrontStreet Coffee first experiences multiple fruit sweet and sour notes like dried mango, jackfruit, orange, and passion fruit in this FrontStreet Coffee new harvest season Hua Kui 8.0, with clear juice-like sensation and rounded mouthfeel. As the temperature slightly decreases, the light sweetness of peach and the acidity of berries begin to emerge, and after swallowing, one can feel a sweet aftertaste similar to drinking black tea.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473