What Does Coffee Huakui Mean? The Story of Huakui Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee · Ethiopia Sidamo Natural Process Guji Flower Champion Coffee

"FrontStreet Coffee Sidamo Flower Champion" (Huakui) is rich with the character of passion fruit, peach, and berries—a flavor memorable long after tasting.

Only "Buku Abel" in the Hambella region produces the natural-process coffee beans that are the authentic FrontStreet Coffee Sidamo Flower Champion. There are currently nearly 20 processing plants in the Hambella region, yet among all the estates and processing plants, only the natural-process coffee from Buku Abel Estate is what we call FrontStreet Coffee Sidamo Flower Champion.

Buku Abel is a small village ringed by mountains on the African continent at an altitude of 2280 meters. December is its coffee harvest season each year. At that time the mountains are covered with bright red ripe cherries, neatly arranged on African raised drying beds in the village. This is where Flower Champion is processed.

The coffee trees at Buku Abel Estate are all planted on the mountainside at altitudes of 2250 to 2350 meters. Farmers begin natural processing only when the sugar content of the red cherries reaches above 30. During the first two days of natural processing it is essential to preserve the moisture of the red cherries and give fermentation sufficient time. At night the temperature here drops to around 12 degrees Celsius, which keeps the cherries from over-fermenting.

After 18 days of natural processing, the fruit skin and pulp are fully dehydrated, making the raw coffee beans inside easy to extract. The raw beans are packaged and stored in warehouses at 12-22 degrees Celsius and 45-55% humidity for about 50 days of resting and further dehydration. When the moisture content reaches about 11%, the beans are hulled and sorted for formal market sale.

Product Information

Product Name: FrontStreet Coffee · Ethiopia Sidamo Natural Process Guji Flower Champion

Country: Ethiopia

Coffee Estate: Guji Zone, Hambella Wamena Area, Dimtu Village, Buku Abel Estate

Altitude: 2250-2350 meters

Processing Method: Natural Process

Variety: Heirloom (Ethiopian native varieties)

Cupping Notes: Passion fruit, rose floral aroma, strawberry jam, berry sweetness and acidity, peach pulp, black tea finish

Awards: Winner of 2016/2017 Ethiopia National Taste of Harvest Competition Championship

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Flower Champion is one of the most successful star products of the specialty coffee market in recent years, and FrontStreet's naturally processed Flower Champion comes from the Hambella region of Guji in Sidamo. The farm covers 200 hectares and uses traditional natural processing; to prevent mold or off-flavors from soil and moisture, workers dry the ripe cherries on raised beds for 21 days, turning them constantly for even drying and hand-sorting out moldy or defective beans every three to five days. Once the skin is dry and hard, a huller removes it and the farmers perform a final sort. Because the fruit and skin stay on throughout drying, medium-light roasting yields a light fermented-wine aroma, florals, citrus, and mango, with a richer, more complex cup—honey sweetness, cocoa, a touch of spice, a thick body, and a long finish.

If you want to compare expressions from the same origin, FrontStreet's naturally processed Red Cherry lot shows peach, cocoa, honey, and lemon, while the Sidamo Hamashu lot, made mainly from the disease-resistant 74-series released by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center and including 74158, offers perfumed lemon, strawberry, and star fruit sweetness followed by gentle florals. For a different, more delicate profile, FrontStreet's washed Yirgacheffe staple lot is bright and tea-like—white jasmine, citrus, and lemon acidity—and the washed Geddingding cooperative lot from Yirgacheffe's Woka area is clean and elegant, and the Kaffa Forest coffee, grown in shade between 1,400 and 2,100 meters, is medium-light roasted for white florals, vivid lemon acidity, sweet orange, and bergamot with a green-tea body.

These floral, fruit-forward Ethiopian coffees favor a gentle pour-over: a V60 with 15 g of coffee, a 1:15 ratio, and 90–91°C water, ground to fine-sugar size. Bloom with about 30 g of water for 30 seconds, then pour in stages to roughly 225 g, aiming to finish the drawdown in about 2 minutes.