Yirgacheffe Farmers Cooperative Union | What is Yirgacheffe Coffee and Where Does It Come From

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Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperatives Union (YCFCU)

The Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperatives Union (YCFCU) represents 26 cooperatives located in the Gedeo Zone of southern Ethiopia, distributed across towns such as Yirgacheffe, Gedeb, Wonago, and Kochere. In the development process of Ethiopian small coffee farmers from poverty to gradual self-sufficiency, the Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperatives Union plays an extremely important role.

Generally, Ethiopian small coffee farmers own cultivation areas of no more than 1 hectare, with minimal coffee cherry harvest yields. Small farmers cannot support themselves and their families solely by growing coffee and need to plant other cash crops to barely make a living. Before the establishment of YCFCU, the harvested coffee cherries from small farmers were still traded internationally through ECX. However, since ECX's nature is to mix all products and then grade them for sale at market prices internationally, although small farmers could obtain better profits than the severe exploitation they experienced previously, they still couldn't truly gain the increased profits that come from excellent products through these transactions. Over time, this situation would inevitably lead to a decline in the quality of coffee cherries, and the mixed grading system also prevented foreign buyers from tracing the history and terroir information of Yirgacheffe coffee cherries. Thus, organizations like the YCFCU cooperative emerged with the founding purpose of stabilizing coffee price fluctuations and improving the quality of Yirgacheffe coffee and the profits of small farmers.

The YCFCU cooperative is a coffee exporter recognized by the Ethiopian government. Coffee small farmers in the Gedeo Zone can freely choose whether to join or not. It is also a system jointly maintained by grassroots farmers. On one hand, this frees farmers from the unfair treatment of being exploited by private processing plants, and on the other hand, it provides international buyers with a channel to directly face various village cooperatives.

In such economically underdeveloped regions, small farmers find it difficult to have surplus funds to purchase chemical fertilizers. Therefore, local coffee cultivation uses natural and organic farming methods. Ethiopia has vast natural wild forests, and 90% of coffee cultivation areas can be found within forests. The use of natural shade methods and intercropping helps develop the flavor of Yirgacheffe coffee, achieving excellent agricultural results and sustainable management.

The establishment of the YCFCU cooperative has fulfilled the eager goal of international buyers for Ethiopian coffee to provide a complete history from origin to cup. It has also allowed cooperative members to gradually improve education and quality of life within their villages through reasonable profits.

FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe

FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe grows in the Sidamo region of southwestern Ethiopia. The coffee beans are small to medium-sized, with raw beans showing a light yellow-green color and complete, beautiful bean shapes. It holds a representative position among specialty coffees from East Africa.

Now under the ECX system, the Yirgacheffe area has been divided into four sub-regions: Yirgachefe, Wenago, Kochere, and Genlena Abay. The soil here is fertile, with an average altitude of over 1,800 meters, making it a high-altitude region with significant temperature differences between day and night. The production methods of each region, combined with local unique native tree species coffee plantations, result in different flavor profiles for each batch of coffee beans, making them quite distinctive and unique.

FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe is a high-quality washed Arabica bean with unique and bright fruity acidity. Upon tasting, you can immediately feel the fresh and bright aroma. This distinctive FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe, with its bold floral notes and lemon acidity, interprets the coffee flavor perfectly with rich layers. Drinking it also gives an illusion similar to tea. Therefore, many people also say that FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe doesn't taste like coffee, but rather like a soft and pleasant fruit tea. It can be both elegant and unrestrained, with a precise balance between simplicity and complexity, and has been beautifully praised by the Japanese as the queen of coffees.

Originally, FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe was famous for and predominantly produced using washed processing methods. However, now natural-processed FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe has gained enthusiastic market popularity due to its rich berry sweetness. Because of the significant increase in demand, the production of natural-processed Yirgacheffe has also increased substantially.

Important Notice :

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