Yirgacheffe Coffee: Proper Brewing Methods and Flavor Profile - Guide to Pour-Over Yirgacheffe Coffee Beans

Yirgacheffe from Ethiopia boasts bright, delicate, and rich flavors, making it an introductory single-origin coffee for many coffee enthusiasts. It's perfect for extraction methods like pour-over and cold drip, allowing people to experience that coffee offers more than just bitterness.

What are the characteristics of Yirgacheffe coffee beans?

The so-called Yirgacheffe flavor features elegant citrus, lemon, berries, and rich floral notes, along with a clear tea-like sensation that leaves an unforgettable impression. To express such refined flavors and mouthfeel, excellent growing conditions, varieties, processing methods, as well as roasting and brewing are all indispensable. Among FrontStreet Coffee's many self-roasted coffee beans, the three most popular in daily offerings are: Gedeb Cooperative, Red Cherry, and Washed Yirgacheffe Daily Bean.

Located on the African continent, Ethiopia lacks developed water resources, so traditionally it adopted ancient natural drying methods to process green beans—that is, direct drying under sunlight. Due to the rough techniques, coffee quality was generally low. It wasn't until 1972 that Ethiopia introduced Central American washing processing technology and equipment to improve coffee bean quality. Unlike other producing regions, Yirgacheffe is a wetland area more suitable for washed processing. The multiple steps in the washing process significantly reduce defect rates, resulting in higher clarity and more distinct, thorough aroma. This initiative also amplified the citrus and lemon aromas of Yirgacheffe coffee beans, making the taste fresher and brighter.

In the past, most of the coffee we drank was dominated by burnt bitterness. Coffee's strong bitterness mainly came from roasters deep-roasting beans, with flavor profiles focusing on nuts and dark chocolate. Due to the small size of Yirgacheffe coffee beans, deep roasting can easily cause uneven heating or even scorching, so roasters tend to use medium-light roasting. Unexpectedly, they discovered that lightly roasted Yirgacheffe not only presented bright acidity but also had highly recognizable fruit flavors, essentially opening the "new era of fruity acidic coffee." Preferring sweetness and fearing bitterness恰好 aligns with popular taste, which is why Yirgacheffe is so popular worldwide. FrontStreet Coffee hopes everyone can experience the classic Yirgacheffe taste, so all three Yirgacheffe varieties on our bean menu are medium-light roasted.

What equipment is needed for pour-over coffee?

For pour-over coffee at home, we need to equip ourselves with the following tools: pour-over kettle, filter cup, serving pot, grinder, filter paper, electronic scale, and thermometer.

The grinder plays a very important role in pour-over coffee and is typically divided into two categories: manual grinders and electric grinders. Regardless of which grinding equipment you choose, the goal is to obtain evenly ground coffee powder. The coarseness of the coffee powder directly affects the coffee's taste. If the powder is too coarse, it's prone to under-extraction resulting in a weak flavor; if too fine, it's prone to over-extraction resulting in bitterness. FrontStreet Coffee uses a tool to adjust grind size—China's No. 20 0.85mm standard sieve. For medium-light roasted coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee consistently uses a 75-80% sieve pass rate, while for medium-dark roasted coffee beans, we use 70-75%.

Here, Yirgacheffe is a medium-light roasted, high-altitude coffee bean. FrontStreet Coffee hopes to extract more rich aromatic substances, so we choose a coarseness level with an 80% pass rate through the No. 20 standard sieve, corresponding to a setting of 10 on the EK43s grinder used in our stores.

The thermometer is used to measure hot water temperature. Water temperature plays a similar role to grind size—the higher the water temperature, the higher the extraction efficiency, making it easier to release various flavor compounds and resulting in higher concentration. If using near-boiling hot water for brewing, it's easy to extract unpleasant bitter substances. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee uses different brewing parameters for medium-dark roasted coffee beans compared to lightly roasted ones. For medium-dark roasted coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using 87-90°C, while lightly roasted coffee requires higher temperatures to stimulate aromas, thus using 91-93°C.

There are many styles of coffee filter cups on the market, with different styles producing different brewing effects and requiring corresponding filter paper to isolate coffee grounds. FrontStreet Coffee's daily offerings in our stores typically choose Hario V60 and KONO filter cups. The V60 filter cup is mainly responsible for brewing lighter roasted coffee beans, while the KONO filter cup handles darker roasted coffee beans. Here, FrontStreet Coffee's barista will use a resin V60 filter cup to extract Yirgacheffe coffee.

The V60 filter cup features flow ribs connecting the top and bottom and a large circular hole in the center, which speeds up water flow. The spiral-shaped exhaust groove design lengthens the water flow path, increasing contact time between coffee grounds and hot water. Each water stream converges along the grooves toward the filter cup's center point, concentrating pressure on the coffee grounds and extracting coffee with richer layers.

The pour-over kettle is used to inject hot water steadily into the coffee grounds. A narrow-spout kettle can pour a stable water flow, more evenly rinsing the powder layer to release flavor compounds. The electronic scale allows us to control total water volume and extraction time, aiming to brew according to the original brewing plan. FrontStreet Coffee recommends purchasing a fast-display electronic scale with timing functionality, or directly searching for pour-over coffee electronic scales.

Brewing Techniques

On online media platforms, we can see various pour-over water pouring techniques, such as single-pour, three-stage method, four-six method, etc. Various techniques can bring different flavor expressions to the coffee in the cup. Based on past brewing experience, FrontStreet Coffee suggests that beginners adopt the three-stage water pouring method. Three-stage extraction helps more fully dissolve flavor compounds during extraction, increasing mouthfeel complexity while avoiding over-extraction from overly long soaking times.

For 15 grams of coffee powder with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio and 225ml total water volume, the three-stage water amounts are divided as: 30ml, 95ml, 100ml, with weights displayed on the electronic scale as: 30g, 125g, 225g.

Fold the filter paper to fit snugly with the filter cup, wet the filter paper with a small amount of water while ensuring better adhesion, and pour out the water from the lower pot. Next, pour in the coffee grounds and tap gently to distribute the powder layer evenly. For the first stage, gently inject 30 grams of water for blooming, with a blooming time of 30 seconds. For the second stage, inject water to about 125 grams, circling evenly and steadily outward. Then wait for the coffee liquid to drop, and when it reaches halfway, inject the final stage of water to 225 grams. After waiting for all the coffee to drip through, the total extraction time is typically around 2 minutes. Finally, remove the dripper, shake the coffee liquid in the lower pot evenly, and you can start tasting from high temperature.

The reason everyone loves pour-over coffee is that when we actively explore the extraction flavor expressions of coffee, adjust brewing methods according to different coffee bean varieties and roast levels, carefully select brewing vessels to experience the different appearances coffee takes through various extraction methods, and control factors like grind size, temperature, water flow rate, pouring techniques, etc., to adjust coffee extraction. Every step can bring different taste and olfactory experiences—this is the charm of pour-over coffee.

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

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat account: qjcoffeex

Important Notice :

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