What is G1 Coffee Beans: Ethiopia's Coffee Grade G1 - Exquisite Quality Through Rigorous Selection

FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Ethiopian Coffee Bean Grading System

The definition of Ethiopian coffee grades is quite complex.

Ethiopian coffee is sold through the trading system of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX).

By providing a secure and reliable end-to-end commodity handling, grading and storage system, ECX ensures that quotes and bids are matched, along with a risk-free payment and delivery system. Settling transactions this way gives every market participant the security they need while serving everyone fairly and efficiently.

ECX's coffee trading model roughly follows this process. Farmers first sell coffee cherries to local washing stations, and some stations pay higher prices for higher quality cherries. The washing stations send the processed green beans to warehouses at delivery stations.

Before ECX existed, washed coffee was graded for export as G1 and G2, while natural coffee was graded G3, G4 and G5 - meaning the highest grade available for natural coffee was G3.

After ECX emerged, the grading system was redefined. The names for washed coffee stayed the same, but for natural coffee, G1 appeared for the first time. That is why Ethiopian natural G1 and G2 now appear on the market while G3 has gradually become less common.

Washed coffee Grade 1 means 0-3 defective beans per 300 grams of green beans;

Grade 2 means 4-12 defective beans per 300 grams.

- Hand selection to pick out defective beans -

In practice the defective-bean standards applied by sellers and buyers certainly differ, but comparing defect rates is still straightforward. G1 clearly has fewer defective beans than G2, which means that, setting aside flavour and roast level, Ethiopian G1 beans are of higher quality than G2 beans - at least in terms of defective flavours, the two can be told apart clearly.

Knowledge point: most coffee-producing countries do not grade coffee by a single standard. They examine the defect rate, ensure bean size and require a certain altitude, using several standards together to measure the grade of a bean.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Ethiopia is the world's best-known specialty coffee origin and the birthplace of coffee, home to a vast number of native varieties. The most accessible place to start is FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe, which shows clear jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity. Yirgacheffe is a small town in southern Ethiopia, mild and misty year-round, where thousands of coffee trees flourish and produce the region's signature interweaving of floral aroma and fruit acidity, light and elegant with a tea-like body, like a clean and refreshing lemon tea.

Most Ethiopian coffee is grown under a garden model, with each smallholder sending the harvest to a village-level processing station and selling under the producing team's name, which is why so many cooperative coffees exist. FrontStreet Gutingding Cooperative is a good example: located in the Gotiti village in the Woka district at the southeastern edge of Yirgacheffe, it was originally part of the YCFCU's Woka cooperative, and as demand for traceability grew it became an independent single origin. Because the fruit is stripped before drying, its inherent aromas come through more clearly, giving citrus and lemon notes and an elegant white floral character, bright and delicate overall.

For a natural coffee, FrontStreet Natural Red Cherry selects only fully ripe fruit without defects, sun-dries it for two weeks until the sugars and essence of the fruit have fully permeated the bean, and finishes at 12% moisture before the hardened fruit, mucilage and pod are scraped away and the beans are sorted for density and colour. All that screening is why every bean is a specialty bean, clean and refined with rich, captivating fruit aroma. FrontStreet Huakui, from the Hambella area of Guji in Sidamo, is dried on raised beds for 21 days with regular turning and hand sorting every three to five days; roasted light-to-medium it shows a light fermented wine note, florals, citrus and mango, with honey sweetness, a cocoa bass note, a hint of spice, a full body and a long finish.