Is Yirgacheffe Suitable for Milk? How to Choose Grind Size for Pour-Over Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee: Yirgacheffe Red Honey Red Cherry Brewing Guide

Light Roast Coffee

Light roast refers to the roast degree from first crack to just before second crack—in other words, from cinnamon to city roast.

Light roasting exists to showcase the diverse flavors contained in raw beans. It reduces the flavors created by dark roasting and highlights the inherent characteristics of the beans themselves, so the key to choosing a light roast lies in the freshness of the green coffee and the rich aromas it carries.

At light to medium roast levels, the "terroir" of the coffee is most easily expressed. Bright, lively, fruit-acid flavors are what this roast level aims to present. Paired with "black" coffee extraction methods such as pour-over, siphon, and AeroPress, lightly roasted beans typically show refreshing flavors with very rich expression. Florals, fruit acidity, and certain tea-like notes are the hallmarks of this style.

Purely from extraction principles: cell expansion in lightly roasted beans is smaller than in dark roasts and water absorption is weaker, so the water needs more time to draw out the desired substances. Because the cell walls of light-roast coffee are less damaged—the cell tissue has not fully expanded and the capillaries that assist extraction have not fully formed—acidity is more prominent.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Example

Today FrontStreet Coffee uses the Yirgacheffe Idido red honey Red Cherry as an example to share a brewing method.

For the red honey processed Red Cherry, we choose a light roast to express its floral and fruity aromas and citrus acidity. During cupping we tasted jasmine, citrus, honey, berries, and almonds. Overall this is a flavor-oriented bean, so we do not recommend adding anything to it—simply tasting its original flavors is already very enjoyable.

Brewing Parameters

Water temperature: 91 degrees C

Extraction temperature relates to roast degree: light-roasted beans carry more floral and acidic compounds. Water that is too low produces uncomfortable acidity and astringency; water that is too high brings bitterness that masks the fruity acidity.

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

A ratio that is too high (too much water) yields a thin, watery cup; too low a ratio makes the flavor intense and bitter.

Grind size: Medium-fine

A normal pour-over grind should be uniform. Even particle size avoids uneven extraction and lets the coffee's flavor compounds dissolve at a relatively saturated rate.

Brewing method: Segmented extraction. Bloom with 30g of water for 40 seconds (extended slightly because the fresh beans were still vigorously degassing). Pour with a small circular stream to 125g, then pause. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 228g and stop. Once the level drops again to just above the bed, remove the dripper. (Timing starts from the beginning of the bloom.) Total extraction time: 2 minutes 05 seconds.

Tasting Notes

Flavor: Berries, strawberry, honey

Knowledge Expansion

The vast majority of a coffee beverage is water, so we should understand the relationship between water and the flavor compounds in the beans. Extracting those compounds requires weighing the solution (water), the solute (coffee), temperature, and other variables in the brewing process.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Yirgacheffe, in southern Ethiopia's Sidamo province, sits at roughly 1700-2100 meters with coffee grown above 1800 meters—among the highest coffee elevations on earth. Its trademark white florals and lemon-citrus acidity make it the default answer for lovers of light roasts. The FrontStreet washed Yirgacheffe everyday bean is the classic starting point: jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, a tea-like body, and an approachable price that has made it many people's first specialty coffee.

If you enjoy the honey-and-berry style of the Red Cherry featured above, the FrontStreet natural Red Cherry Yirgacheffe is the natural next step. Only fully ripe cherries are selected, then sun-dried whole on raised beds—turned every 2-3 hours at the start to prevent uneven fermentation—for three to five weeks before hulling and repeated hand sorting. Because the fruit dries on the bean, it keeps classic Yirgacheffe character while adding tropical fruit: citrus acidity, berry juiciness, honeyed sweetness, and creamy smoothness. Brew either with a V60 at 90-91 degrees C, 15g of coffee at 1:15, ground to fine granulated sugar (80% pass on a #20 sieve)—bloom 30g for 30 seconds, pour to 125g, then finish at 225g, drawing down in about 2:00-2:10.