Flavor Characteristics of Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Coffee and the Red Cherry Project

FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Project

Dry Aroma: Clean and delicate aroma, floral, vanilla, peach, honey, cane sugar.

Wet Aroma: Vanilla, botanical, peach, nectarine, floral, citrus.

Slurping: Extremely clean and delicate, with prominent floral notes, honey, a fine and long-lasting smooth mouthfeel, vanilla, soft cherry acidity, honey, premium hazelnut, white pomelo flavor, delicate sweetness, and a persistent aftertaste that blends honey and cherry fruit acidity.

The Red Cherry Project

In 2007, the Dutch trading company Trabocca launched the Red Cherry Project. Whether a coffee is washed, semi-washed, natural, or semi-natural, the pure objective was to incentivize farmers to produce the highest-quality coffee and to ensure their efforts received recognition and reward. Before each harvest season, Trabocca invites selected farmers or producers to join the program, producing micro-lots of roughly 1500-3000 kg from carefully handpicked, 100% ripe red cherries - hence the name "Red Cherry Project." Trabocca provides financial loan support, new equipment, and production knowledge to help farmers, and promises to buy at premium prices as long as the actual output meets cupping standards at its labs in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The passing standard Trabocca sets is 88 points.

After processing at origin, Red Cherry Project beans are immediately packed in plastic inner bags (GrainPro bags or vacuum-packed portions) and shipped to Djibouti to await sea transport. Through real-time monitoring, secure transportation, and timely, appropriate processing, the project pursues perfect quality. Roasters can buy excellent coffee through the program, which also lifts Ethiopian coffee quality and prices; Trabocca then returns profits to farmers, enabling continuous, sustained improvement.

Lico Washing Station Discovery

At Trabocca's Amsterdam office, the Lico washing station receives hundreds of samples each year. In a December 2013 blind tasting, Trabocca discovered this washed Yirgacheffe from the Lico processing station, with its unique aroma of honey peach, mango, and nuts.

FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe

FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe has long enjoyed a prestigious reputation among connoisseurs worldwide. This rare washed premium Arabica is suited to various roast levels, perfectly presenting fresh, bright floral and fruit aromas. Its beautiful, complete bean shape is a high-end quality that ordinary Mocha varieties cannot match. It features unique citrus and lemon fruit fragrance with a touch of jasmine florality and a wine-like acidity. The flavor is clean and free of impurities, like freshly brewed citrus fruit tea with a long-lasting aftertaste. Rich in floral and citrus aromas, it performs impressively. After medium roasting it shows soft acidity, while after dark roasting it releases a rich aroma. The rich, uniform texture is the most captivating characteristic of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, hailed as Ethiopia's finest coffee bean and a standard-bearer for East African specialty coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

To taste the classic Ethiopian profile the Red Cherry Project champions, begin with FrontStreet's washed Yirgacheffe. As the everyday staple of the range, it is known for white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like body, and its approachable price makes it the bean many drinkers trust for their first step into specialty coffee.

For a version defined by the region's cooperatives, FrontStreet's Yirgacheffe Guodingding Cooperative coffee comes from a village-level team in the Woka area on the southeastern edge of Yirgacheffe. Made with the most traditional washed processing, it carries no bitterness of the ordinary kind: fresh, bright citrus and lemon acidity, jasmine fragrance, and a clean, elegant cup. It is often described as the last pure corner of Yirgacheffe.

If you want the natural-process side of Yirgacheffe, FrontStreet's Red Cherry uses whole, fully ripe cherries dried on raised beds. Turned every 2-3 hours over the first few days to avoid uneven heat and over-fermentation, and turned as the weather demands over three to five weeks, it keeps the typical Yirgacheffe character while adding tropical fruit aroma: citrus-like acidity, a berry-juice body, honeyed sweetness, and a creamy smoothness. Brew it with a V60 at 90-91 degrees Celsius, 15g of coffee, a 1:15 ratio, and a grind around fine sugar (EK43s setting 10), using a three-stage pour of 30g for a 30-second bloom, then to 125g, then to 225g.