Can Yemen Mocha Coffee Be Brewed Well with French Press? What Are the Tips for Brewing Mocha Coffee?

A Look at Yemen Mocha's Growing Regions

Yemen is the source of peaberry beans: smaller, rounder seeds that look much like peas, which is why they are often sold simply as Mocha coffee beans. In appearance they closely resemble Ethiopia's Harrar beans — small, sharply acidic, and laced with an odd, hard-to-describe spiciness. Taste carefully and a faint chocolate note shows up as well, which goes a long way toward explaining why chocolate and coffee were eventually paired together.

Yemeni growers plant poplar trees to give their coffee the shade it needs. As they have for centuries, they set these trees on steep terraces so that scarce rainfall and limited land are put to the fullest use. Alongside Typica and Bourbon, more than ten coffee species native to Ethiopia are also cultivated in Yemen. True "Mocha coffee beans" come only from the Republic of Yemen on the southwestern Arabian Peninsula, where they grow on steep mountain slopes at altitudes of 3,000 to 8,000 feet, making this the world's oldest coffee.

Mokha Mattari

A prestigious market name taken from Mattari in the Bani Mattar (also spelled Bany Mattar) province west of Sana'a, Yemen's capital. This high-altitude coffee typically shows a fine red-wine aroma, dried-fruit flavors and a full body, and it often turns out bittersweet and chocolatey when roasted dark. The best Mattari beans are small; the raw seeds carry a fragrant sweet-wine aroma with a moderate ripe-fruit fermentation note. Its more pronounced Yemeni character means it always comes out a winner.

Mokha San'ani

A broad market name covering coffee from the growing areas west of Yemen's capital, Sana'a. It is a blend drawn from tens of thousands of small farms on the slopes near the capital (the photo at left shows Sana'a). Grown a little lower than Mattari, it is generally lighter in body and lower in acidity, yet it has good fruit aromatics and often shows riper fruit and wilder notes than Mattari. In my experience, San'ani quality has swung widely in recent years, with the occasional flat, earthy or over-fermented batch. Careful cupping and selection is essential work for any coffee merchant — no shortcuts allowed.

Mokha Ismaili

One of the traditional old varieties, a market name for celebrated coffee from central Yemen and also described as a botanical classification of traditional Yemeni coffee of high beverage quality. It grows at very high altitudes above 6,500 feet and is known for rounder, smaller beans than Mattari, a full body and great complexity. It generally outperforms Mattari. This is the least-produced and most expensive Yemen Mocha (and Yemen Mocha is never cheap to begin with). Top-quality Mokha Ismaili comes from the Hirazi region (less famous than Bani Matar, but locally regarded as the finest growing area) on high mountain slopes, where Hirazi reaches altitudes of 8,000 feet.

Mokha Rimi

Produced in the Djebel Remi (also known as Raimi or Rayma) region, with quality similar to San'ani. Mokha Rimi usually carries slightly heavier fermentation notes and now and then a surprisingly rich raisin sweetness. Roasted well, the beans smell like opening a jar of rich fruit jam.

Mokha Yafeh

Produced in Yafeh (also spelled Yaffe) province in southern Yemen, this is an uncommon Yemen Mocha and the country's only "southern flavor." Output is limited and most of it is exported to neighbouring United Arab Emirates, so it rarely appears on the international specialty coffee market.

Arabian Mocha

A single-origin coffee from the mountains of Yemen on the southwestern Arabian Peninsula bordering the Red Sea. Among the world's finest cultivated coffees, it is prized for its high viscosity and its distinctive, rich, wine-like acidity.

Yemen Mocha splits into different schools depending on where it grows — much like the chocolate and acidity of MATTARI Mocha, or the wildness and fragrance of SANANI Mocha.

What Makes Yemen Coffee Distinctive

Yemen coffee is high-quality, smooth and aromatic, but it has its weaknesses: quality cannot be guaranteed consistently, and the bean grading system is unreliable. Traditionally, Yemen's best beans come from Mattari, followed by Sharki and then Sanani. These beans are low in caffeine. Dark-roasted Yemen coffee often shows a chocolate-like bittersweet quality, which is why chocolate-flavored specialty coffees today are still labeled "Mocha."

Yemen coffee holds the world's most unique, rich and fascinating set of aromas: red wine, wildness, dried fruit, blueberry, grape, cinnamon, tobacco, sweet spices, woody notes and even chocolate. You will see all kinds of adjectives attached to Yemen Mocha. Just as Mocha has many meanings, its English spelling varies too: Moka, Moca and Mocca are all common. On Yemeni coffee bags and documents you can find as many as four local spellings — "Mokha," "Makha," "Morkha" and "Mukha" — all meaning the same thing.

Yemen Mocha is complex and ever-changing in the cup. For roasters, coaxing the best out of it is a real challenge. A light-to-medium roast brings out fruity sweetness and gentle, warm sun-dried fermentation notes; a dark roast reveals a rich red-wine fragrance and a bittersweet chocolate finish.

Flavor: exotic, faintly wine-like, spicy and stimulating — unique and not to be missed

Recommended Roast: Medium

★★★: Excellent

The Yemen Coffee Market

Yemen's coffee is exported from December through April of the following year. A long-standing problem is that coffee from the north is adulterated with inferior material before it leaves the southern port of Aden. Only coffee shipped from the port of Hodeida can be confirmed as genuinely northern-grown. Most Yemeni coffee is farmed under natural conditions, largely because growers lack the funds to do otherwise.

Yemen Mocha Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

Yemen Mocha beans roasted by FrontStreet Coffee come with full guarantees on both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer outstanding value — a 227-gram package costs only about 85 yuan. At 15 grams of beans per cup, one package makes 15 cups, which works out to roughly 6 yuan a cup. Set against café prices that often climb into the dozens of yuan per cup, that is a genuinely honest recommendation.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Yemen Mocha earns its fame through red-wine aroma, wild dried-fruit depth and a faintly fermented sweetness — a profile that shows up beautifully in Ethiopia's natural-process coffees. FrontStreet's Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Natural begins with only fully ripe cherries, dries them slowly on raised beds, then rests the beans so the fruit character settles. The cup is layered with peach, cocoa, honey and lemon, and its juicy berry sweetness makes a natural companion to Yemen Mocha's wine-like side.

For an even more aromatic match, look to FrontStreet's Ethiopia Huakui, a natural-process coffee from the Hambella area of Guji, Sidama. Farmed at high altitude and dried on raised beds with the fruit still attached, it is roasted light-to-medium and pours out notes of soft fermented wine, florals, citrus and mango over a honeyed, cocoa-tinged base. Its full body and long finish echo the complexity that makes Yemen Mocha so rewarding.