Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Fog Valley Natural Red Cherry Project: Full-bodied with Rich Tropical Fruit Aromas

FrontStreet Coffee - Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Fog Valley Natural Red Cherry Project

The Red Cherry Project (Operation Cherry Red) was initiated by the Dutch company Trabocca with half of its funding sponsored by the Dutch government. Since 2005, it has worked with numerous small coffee cooperatives, encouraging and helping producers refine washed, semi-washed, natural, and other experimental processing methods to raise coffee quality.

Before each harvest, Trabocca invites selected smallholder organizations and producers to make micro-batch coffee of roughly 1,500 to 3,000 kilograms. They hand-select 100% ripe red cherries in batches, which is where the name comes from. Trabocca supplies money, equipment, and technical support, and promises to buy at premium prices if the finished coffee meets high-quality standards. In this way the project is not only a commercial activity that complies with fair-trade rules but also a production program for high-quality coffee - and, beyond that, a restructuring of the supply chain that benefits farmers and drinkers at the same time.

Yirgacheffe is really a collection of surrounding coffee communities or cooperatives, nearly all of which use washed processing. A small amount of specialty coffee is also processed naturally on purpose, to build a more seductive fruit aroma and a heavier body. In 2008, after the finest Fog Valley natural beans were discovered by the American market, they became famous worldwide. This is a craft-grade lot grown by a micro-estate, filling in the aroma that Yirgacheffe washed beans can lack and producing a coffee whose flavor astonished the world. It also earned certification under the Red Cherry Project.

Ethiopian coffee grading separates washed beans into G1 and G2, with G1 the highest grade for washed coffee, and natural beans into G3 and G4, with G3 the highest grade for natural coffee.

Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Fog Valley Natural Red Cherry Project

Region: Yirgacheffe

Variety: Local native varieties

Altitude: 1800-2000m

Processing Method: Natural

Flavor Notes: Citrus, Berries, Strawberry, Tropical Fruits

Knowledge Point: Ethiopia, one of the world's least developed countries, is recognized as the origin of the Arabica coffee species and can even be considered the birthplace of coffee itself.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

The Red Cherry Project shows how much a natural-process Yirgacheffe can gain when only fully ripe cherries are dried whole: the cup keeps the region's citrus backbone while adding berries, strawberry, and tropical fruit. FrontStreet Coffee sources its own natural Yirgacheffe in exactly this spirit.

The FrontStreet Red Cherry natural begins with fully ripe, undamaged cherries that are screened once more at the mill, then laid out on raised beds. For the first days the fruit is turned every 2-3 hours to prevent uneven heat and over-fermentation, and after three to five weeks of drying - depending on weather and temperature - the dried pulp is machine-hulled and the beans are moved to storage. Because the coffee dries with the fruit still attached, it carries both a typical Yirgacheffe character and the tropical fruit aroma of natural processing, with citrus-like acidity, berry juice, honeyed sweetness, and a creamy smoothness. If you prefer a cleaner, more floral expression of the same origin, the FrontStreet washed Yirgacheffe daily bean brings white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like body, while the FrontStreet washed Gedeb cooperative lot from Worka sharpens that profile into crisp citrus, lemon, and jasmine.

To let a natural Yirgacheffe show both its fruit and its florals, FrontStreet Coffee brews it in a V60 with water at 90-91 degrees Celsius, 15 g of coffee, and a 1:15 ratio, ground to about the size of fine sugar. Bloom with 30 g of water for 30 seconds, pour to about 125 g within the first minute, then top up to roughly 225 g by 1:35, finishing the drawdown in 2:00-2:10.