Nav: Home > Coffee >

What is the Ethiopia Natural Red Cherry Project? Do You Know What Yirgacheffe Means?

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, Professional coffee knowledge exchange, more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style). FrontStreet Coffee - Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Project Brief Introduction. Coffee lovers should know that Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. The English word "coffee" originates from the town of Kaffa in Ethiopia. Ethiopia's coffee varieties are local varieties, with some introduced varieties.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Cafe Style (WeChat public account: cafe_style).

FrontStreet Coffee - Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Project Introduction

Coffee enthusiasts should know that Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, and the English word "coffee" originates from the Ethiopian town "Kaffa." Ethiopia's coffee varieties include both local landraces and introduced varieties. There is little exchange of varieties between different producing regions, which allows the regional characteristics of various coffees to be preserved. Yirgacheffe is a small town at an altitude of 1700-2100 meters and synonymous with premium Ethiopian coffee beans. This area has been wetland since ancient times. "Yirga" means "to settle down," and "Cheffe" means "wetland," so Yirgacheffe translates to "let us settle and thrive on this wetland."

There is no doubt that Ethiopian specialty coffee is widely popular, and FrontStreet Coffee is dedicated to providing everyone with the most amazing specialty coffees that delight the taste buds, all sourced from the "Red Cherry Project."

What is the Red Cherry Project?

The Red Cherry Project (Operation Cherry Red Project) is an initiative aimed at improving the quality and value of Ethiopian green coffee beans. Since 2007, it has been initiated by Dutch trader Trabocca and local farmers. At the beginning of the harvest season, coffee cherries are hand-picked at 100% ripeness according to microclimate zones, ensuring that every coffee seed is mature and nutrient-rich. In subsequent years, the Red Cherry Project has gradually added facilities such as drying racks, cherry depulpers, coffee bean sorters, and cupping laboratories to the producing regions, making Red Cherry Project coffee beans a guarantee of high quality today.

The Red Cherry Project was launched in 2007 by Trabocca green bean company in Ethiopia. It is essentially a public welfare project aimed at helping Ethiopian farmers improve their living conditions. This project provides the best protection for local small-scale farmers, as the prerequisite for participating in this project is that farm owners must have high-quality coffee beans, striving to achieve cupping scores of 90 points while maintaining mass production and traceability.

In organic cultivation and manual harvesting, including careful processing from rack drying to depulping, farmers are extremely meticulous, ensuring the health and premium flavor of the coffee at every stage. In this project, careful women select fully ripe coffee cherries, so 100% are harvested when the coffee cherries are completely mature. This makes a significant difference in the flavor of the brewed coffee, making careful, keen-eyed, and hardworking Ethiopian women important drivers of the Red Cherry Project.

The Red Cherry Project encourages and assists producers in improving washing, semi-washing, natural drying, or other experimental processing methods to enhance coffee quality. Through testing (professional cuppers are also stationed in coffee-producing regions to directly grasp the coffee flavors), the quality of each batch is ensured.

Knowledge Expansion

Yirgacheffe is a small town located in eastern Ethiopia, within the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Regional State. It is bordered by the Sidamo producing region to the north and southwest, and the Guji producing region to the southeast, with an altitude of 1700-2100 meters.

In Brief

FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research hall dedicated to sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation, hoping to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Additionally, we hold three low-discount coffee events every month because FrontStreet Coffee wants to let more friends enjoy the best coffee at the lowest possible price—this has been our mission for the past six years!