What are the characteristics of the Red Cherry Project coffee? Is Yirgacheffe the Red Cherry Project?

What is Operation Cherry Red?

Operation Cherry Red is a project aimed at improving the quality and value of Ethiopian green coffee. It was launched in 2007 by the Dutch trader Trabocca together with local farmers. At the start of the harvest season, 100% ripe red coffee cherries are hand-picked by microclimate zone, which means every seed is in a mature, nutrient-rich state. In the years since, Operation Cherry Red has added drying racks, cherry pulpers, bean sorters, cupping labs, and other facilities to the producing areas. As a result, Operation Cherry Red beans today are a guarantee of high quality.

SCFCU is a large coffee cooperative union in Ethiopia, currently with about 46 member cooperatives. The whole union is made up of more than 82,000 farmers, making it the second largest coffee cooperative union.

Operation Cherry Red is led by the Dutch company Trabocca, with half of the funding sponsored by the Dutch government. Since 2005 it has worked with many small coffee cooperatives, encouraging and assisting producers to improve washed, semi-washed, natural, and other experimental processing methods in order to raise coffee quality. Before each harvest season, Trabocca invites selected smallholder organizations and producers to take part in making micro-lot coffee (roughly 1,500 to 3,000 kg), with careful hand-picking of 100% ripe red cherries in batches, which is where the name Operation Cherry Red comes from.

Trabocca provides financial, equipment, and technical resources to help farmers, and promises to buy at favourable prices if actual quality meets the high-specification standards. Operation Cherry Red is therefore not only a commercial activity that complies with fair trade rules, but also a production activity for high-quality coffee and, beyond that, a restructuring of the industry that benefits farmers and consumers at the same time.

Operation Cherry Red is also an approach that pushes farms to pay more attention to screening and selecting beans, and these coffees are relatively more expensive. Operation Cherry Red covers washed, natural, semi-washed, semi-natural, and experimental coffees. Its main producing areas include Yirgacheffe, Sidamo, Bench Maji (Bonga Forest), Lekempti, Kembata, Illubabor, Harar, and Limu, and in 2011 the Golocha area near Harar was added. Each of these has distinctive flavours that fully showcase the character of Ethiopian beans. After receiving the coffee, Trabocca carries out further selection. Farms that pass the cupping quality tests in both the Ethiopian and Dutch offices and meet the standards receive high bonuses. The cupping qualifying score must be above 88 points to become a good coffee in Operation Cherry Red. Trabocca, the promoter of the project, invests all the profits it earns in recent years back into the cooperative farms. Trabocca stresses that this is a non-profit project, so the company uses only 4 people, including the boss and a secretary, to run Operation Cherry Red; other administrative matters are supported by the parent company to keep administrative costs down, with all profits returned to the cooperative farms.

Flavor Profile

Aroma/Flavor: strawberry, nuts, biscuits, fermented notes, grapes, mango, banana, vanilla, chrysanthemum tea, ripe black tea, chocolate, honey

Acidity: plum, grapes, sweet orange, and red apple acidity, moderate acidity, single malt wine acidity

Complexity & Other: complex and multi-layered, very clean and fresh, lively with good elasticity, heavy texture when cooled, a distinct fermented brandy flavour, persistent aftertaste

Brewing Parameters

FrontStreet Coffee recommends the following brewing parameters: V60 / 89-91°C / coffee-to-water ratio 1:15 / extraction time 1 minute 50 seconds.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Operation Cherry Red is built around fully ripe red cherries and careful processing, and the clearest way to taste that idea is FrontStreet Coffee's Sun-Dried Red Cherry, a Yirgacheffe lot made with whole ripe red cherries, dried on raised beds for three to five weeks. That natural process keeps the classic Yirgacheffe character while adding tropical fruit, with citrus-like acidity, a berry-juice body, honey sweetness, and a creamy mouthfeel. For the washed side of the same region, FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Yirgacheffe is the classic entry point, known for white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like body. If you want a single cooperative lot, FrontStreet Coffee's Guodingding Cooperative from the Worka area of Yirgacheffe is an Ethiopia G1 washed coffee with elegant white florals, citrus, orange, and green-tea notes, brewed at around 90-91°C with a 1:15 ratio for the cleanest expression.