Flavor Profile of Ethiopia Guji Flower Queen Coffee Beans - Story and Characteristics of Hand-Poured Sun-Dried Flower Queen Coffee

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The Challenge of Flavor Consistency in Coffee

Logically speaking, a good coffee flavor should be stable—it shouldn't change completely year after year. FrontStreet Coffee has discussed with many friends why the flavor of this coffee is different from previous years. Is it because the processing method has changed, or is it influenced by natural environmental factors? These environmental factors can all alter the flavor of a cup of coffee. Therefore, no coffee bean's flavor remains completely unchanged.

Case Study: The Evolution of Guanhua Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee takes the recent Guanhua coffee beans as an example for everyone. Guanhua coffee has been widely praised for its distinct strawberry cream flavor. However, FrontStreet Coffee has received letters from many Guanhua enthusiasts asking: why does this year's Guanhua taste different? It doesn't seem like Guanhua anymore. The reason is actually quite simple, and it's not just that Guanhua coffee beans' flavor has changed—basically, most coffee beans will have some fluctuation in flavor each year. Because coffee is also an agricultural product, during the planting or nurturing process, climate, soil, fertilizer application, and annual rainfall will all cause coffee flavor to change to some extent. In natural environments, human capabilities are very limited, and there are simply too many uncertain factors.

Therefore, this is a problem that every specialty coffee shop must face: why Guanhua no longer tastes like Guanhua. This is also why FrontStreet Coffee continuously conducts cupping tests on every coffee bean that makes it to their shelves—because cupping is a relatively simple way to detect whether a coffee's flavor has changed or whether it has sufficient representativeness to become one of FrontStreet Coffee's menu offerings.

Exploring Sidamo's Guanhua Coffee

Now, let's follow FrontStreet Coffee to learn about Guanhua coffee from the Sidamo region. The Sidamo region is very well-known in Ethiopia and is one of Ethiopia's famous specialty coffee producing areas. The Yirgacheffe and Guji regions that people often hear about became independent from Sidamo due to their unique regional flavors. According to FrontStreet Coffee's understanding, the common processing method for coffee beans in the Sidamo region is natural processing. This year's Guanhua coffee beans from FrontStreet Coffee also use the natural processing method. Coffee beans processed through natural and washed methods each have their own characteristics. If you prefer coffee with a cleaner mouthfeel and brighter acidity, you might prioritize washed processed coffee. In Africa, regions like Ethiopia's Yirgacheffe often use the washed method—FrontStreet Coffee's Gedingding coffee uses washed processing. East African countries like Tanzania, with their higher annual rainfall, also commonly use the washed method. For example, FrontStreet Coffee's Tanzania Kilimanjaro coffee beans have acidity that's not as fresh as Kenya's, leaning more toward lemon acidity and being relatively gentler.

For Sidamo's use of the ancient natural processing method, compared to washed processing, the mouthfeel will have higher body thickness, with acidity that's not as bright. Unlike the bright lemon and citrus notes from Yirgacheffe region, it's more appropriate to describe the acidity of Sidamo region's natural processed beans with berry flavors.

FrontStreet Coffee has conducted multiple cupping tests on Guanhua coffee batches. The cupped Guanhua coffee beans included Guanhua G1, Guanhua 2.0, Guanhua 3.0, Guanhua 3.1, and Guanhua 4.0. FrontStreet Coffee's barista used a 200ml standard cupping bowl, with a grind size that achieved 70%-75% retention on a #20 standard sieve, using 11.3g of coffee grounds and water at 94°C. First, they ground the coffee to smell the dry aroma, then added water to fill the bowl to confirm the wet aroma. After 4 minutes, they broke the crust and removed grounds for flavor evaluation.

Cupping Results and Flavor Profiles

FrontStreet Coffee found after cupping that basically each Guanhua batch had slightly inconsistent flavors, but the overall tonal direction was similar. For example, Guanhua G1 had a smooth mouthfeel with fermented wine aroma, with acidity leaning toward passion fruit—a very classic Guanhua flavor; Guanhua 2.0 had an overall clean mouthfeel, with acidity more berry-like, with some nutty aroma and rich layers; Guanhua 3.0 had a light strawberry jam flavor, with black tea astringency and less noticeable sweetness; Guanhua 3.1 had rich floral aroma, with overall flavors leaning toward cream and tropical fruits, with caramel aftertaste and persistent sweet return; Guanhua 4.0 had citrus acidity, full-bodied berry juice, with black tea notes and persistent sweetness.

The Origin and Naming of Guanhua

Everyone might be curious why the same Guanhua coffee has so many versions. According to FrontStreet Coffee's understanding, it's because the above batches of Guanhua come from different estates and processing plants. Only natural processed coffee from the "Buku Abel" processing plant is called "Guanhua coffee beans," while those from other processing plants are named Guanhua 2.0, Guanhua 3.0, and Guanhua 3.1. As for the name Guanhua, its English name is Hambella, and its Chinese name is "flower champion" (花魁). Chinese green bean suppliers gave it this name due to its rich strawberry cream flavor, combined with their expectations for this Guanhua coffee. They hoped that if future processing techniques became more refined, this Guanhua coffee could shine brightly and compete on equal footing with the dominating Geisha coffee.

When FrontStreet Coffee brews this coffee, to fully extract the rich layered complexity of Guanhua coffee beans, they use higher water temperature and finer grind size for extraction. However, to avoid over-extraction caused by high temperatures, they use faster flow rate drippers, such as the V60 dripper. The V60 dripper has a 60° conical shape—the angle of the cone allows coffee grounds to be concentratedly distributed, and during pouring, the water flow automatically converges toward the center of the dripper, ensuring sufficient contact time between water and coffee grounds, thus extracting suitable coffee liquid. Additionally, the ribs on the inner side of the V60 dripper extend clockwise in a spiral from bottom to top, creating enough space between the filter paper and dripper, allowing for good water flow. Combined with the large hole at the bottom, the water flow rate is relatively faster than many other drippers. FrontStreet Coffee's brewing parameters: V60 dripper, water temperature 90°C, water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, coffee amount 15g, grind size (80% retention on China #20 standard sieve).

Brewing Methods and Flavor Variations

Of course, everyone can also use other drippers to brew this Guanhua coffee, such as V60 dripper, trapezoidal dripper, or flat-bottom dripper. FrontStreet Coffee has previously used different equipment to brew this coffee, using FrontStreet Coffee's common segmented extraction method. The bloom water amount is twice the coffee grounds, meaning 30g of water for 30 seconds of blooming. After small水流绕圈注水至125克后分段，水位下降即将露出粉床时继续注水至225克停止，整段萃取时间（包括闷蒸时间）为2分钟。

When using a V60 dripper to brew Guanhua coffee, it has a distinct melon aroma when smelled, with a gentle jackfruit-like acidity upon entry, followed by the emergence of strawberry berry flavors in the middle section, along with some sugarcane sweet aftertaste, creating relatively rich layers. When using a flat-bottom dripper to brew Guanhua coffee, the entry mouthfeel is smooth, with prominent fermented berry aroma and passion fruit. After the temperature drops, strawberry-like berry sweet and sour notes emerge, with overall relatively balanced flavors. When using a trapezoidal dripper, there's passion fruit and strawberry acidity upon entry, with peach-like sweetness appearing in the finish, a round and full body, and relatively high thickness. It seems the choice of dripper is still very important for brewing a coffee, so FrontStreet Coffee suggests everyone choose according to their own preferences.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of FrontStreet Coffee, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473