Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Kochere Marsaissa Natural Process Rose Peach Essential Oil Intoxication

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

Coffee is a moving target, and the most interesting lots are often the ones still being figured out. This one is a good example of that.

FrontStreet Coffee - Yirgacheffe Kochere Malesha Honey Process Introduction

In 2018, Nordic Approach began experimenting with honey-processed coffee in Ethiopia, and this is an experimental batch from Israel Degfa, the owner of the processing station. Degfa runs sustainable development projects at the site and keeps investing in quality, establishing cooperatives, working toward Rainforest Alliance certification, and putting money into a cherry flotation system.

The coffee comes from a private processing station called Qore in Kochere, within Yirgacheffe, named after the village where it stands, and it collects cherries from a spread of smallholder farmers. Qore means "sharp," as in a sharp knife or the thorns on a plant. In 2018 Degfa took full control of the supply chain, with the high-quality green coffee sold directly and stored in the station's own warehouse.

Several hundred farmers deliver small quantities of cherries to the station each day, and the farms supplying it average about 1 hectare in size. Most of the coffee is grown organically with minimal pruning or intervention, fewer than 1,500 trees are planted per hectare, and a single tree's crop usually yields no more than 100-200 grams of green coffee.

Before processing begins, the whole cherries float in water tanks and any that rise are screened out. The sorted cherries then go to an Agarde disc pulper for depulping, where they are separated into three density grades and only one grade is set aside for honey processing. After depulping and grading, most of the mucilage is still attached to the beans. They are spread in thin layers on African raised beds to dry slowly and covered with shade nets at night. The next morning the sticky beans, still in parchment, are separated so they do not clump together. Drying runs for 20 days, during which the farmers sort the coffee and remove defects by hand.

Yirgacheffe Kochere Malesha Honey Process

Origin: Ethiopia

Region: Yirgacheffe Kochere

Processing Station: Qore Washing Station

Variety: Ethiopian Heirloom

Processing Method: Honey Process

Altitude: 1800-2100 meters

Flavor Profile: High temperature: Rose syrup, peach, sweet orange | Medium temperature: Orange, canned honey peach | Low temperature: Bergamot

Knowledge Point: Ethiopia, one of the world's least developed countries, is widely recognized as the birthplace of the Arabica species and could reasonably be called the origin of coffee itself.

Brief Introduction

FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research institute dedicated to sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share everything without reservation simply to help more people fall in love with coffee, and we keep probing experimental lots like this one so that the frontier of processing stays visible to anyone who wants to follow it.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Honey-processed Yirgacheffe like the Qore lot sits in a middle ground that Ethiopian coffee rarely occupies, with the fruit of a natural process but much of the clarity of a washed one. If that balance appeals to you, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe range lets you map the whole spectrum. The FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe is the reference point, known for white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a clean tea-like finish, and it remains the most affordable way to learn what the region tastes like. The FrontStreet Washed Gedeb Cooperative lot from the Worka area takes the same traditional washed approach and applies it to a single origin, keeping the fresh citrus and lemon acidity and the floral jasmine lift without any harsh bitterness, which makes it a good benchmark against which to judge a honey-process coffee.

At the fruitier end sits the FrontStreet Natural Red Cherry, a full-ripe cherry natural in which only fully mature, healthy cherries are picked, hand-sorted at the mill, spread on raised beds, and turned every two to three hours during the first days to prevent uneven fermentation. After three to five weeks of drying, the pulp is hulled away and the beans are stored. Because the coffee dries with the fruit still attached, it keeps the classic Yirgacheffe profile while adding tropical fruit, berry-juice body, honeyed sweetness, and a creamy texture. Line these three up in one session and the honey process lands almost exactly where you would expect, between the tea-like restraint of the washed lots and the full fruit of the natural, with rose and peach at the front of the cup and a bergamot lift as it cools.