Where is the best coffee in Ethiopia? Flavor Profile and Taste Description of Pour-Over Yirgacheffe Coffee Beans

FrontStreet Coffee - Yirgacheffe Pour Over Tutorial

Yirgacheffe was originally a wetland town in Africa, sitting at around 2,000 meters altitude. In the ancient language, "Yirga" means "settle down" and "Cheffe" means "wetland," so "Yirgacheffe" literally means "let us spend our lives in this fertile land."

A good Yirgacheffe will not feel rough on the tip of your tongue. As your tongue slides across the palate and the oral cavity, you may feel silky, velvety coffee oils moving in your mouth, slightly oily, heavy and viscous, which is a very interesting sensation.

The delightful flavors of coffee are all presented through aroma, taste and mouthfeel. Appreciating the volatile aroma relies on smell, the water-soluble taste relies on the sense of taste, and a smooth mouthfeel is felt through the tactile sensation of the tongue and palate. Make good use of smell, taste and touch when tasting each cup, and the senses will carry you into a wonderful world of thousands of fragrances and flavors.

Chelba Cooperative

Chelba is a specialty green coffee cooperative in the Gedeo region of Yirgacheffe. The Gedeo region has about 700 smallholder farmers, all of whom send their harvested coffee fruit to Chelba Cooperative's processing plant for centralized processing. These smallholders have an average planting area of 2 hectares. The total coffee cultivation area in the region is about 888 hectares, and the cultivation altitude is 1,900-2,100 meters above sea level. The local climate is comfortable, with daytime temperatures of 25°C and nighttime temperatures of 18°C. The farmers plant coffee trees beside subsistence crops and livestock-raising crops, and the main local shade tree species are acacia, podocarpus and others.

Chelba Cooperative's processing plant mainly handles coffee fruit harvested from surrounding farmers. Before processing, Chelba always requires farmers to pick according to strict standards, taking only mature red fruit. This is a critical quality-control step for specialty coffee, and in recent years Chelba Cooperative's beans have been well received.

Green beans processed by the natural method have the sweetness of strawberry and blueberry, while green beans processed by the washed method show a sweetness and acidity similar to citrus and apple.

Tasting Yirgacheffe

When you take a sip of Yirgacheffe, after a quick slurp your retronasal olfaction may detect some black tea aroma. Take another slow sip: can you also feel that strong jasmine fragrance and the lemon fruit acidity from the sides of your tongue, and taste the faint sweet citrus orange from the tip of your tongue? It is a clean yet complex mouthfeel, far from simple.

Brewing Parameters

1. Dripper: V60
2. Grind size: Medium-coarse (BG 6S: China standard 20-mesh sieve pass rate 58%)
3. Water temperature: 91°C
4. Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
5. Brewing method: Segmented extraction

Use 30 g of water for the bloom and let it sit for about 30 seconds. With a small flow, pour 95 g of water in a circular motion around the center, segmenting at 125 g of water. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 240 g to finish. Remove the dripper when the water level drops and is about to expose the bed again. Timing starts at the bloom, and the extraction time is 2'00".

FrontStreet Coffee Philosophy

In short: FrontStreet Coffee is a dedicated coffee research establishment that is happy to share coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation simply to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Every month there are 3 discounted coffee activities, because FrontStreet Coffee wants to let more friends drink the best coffee at the lowest price. This has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for 6 years.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

To taste the classics of this region, start with FrontStreet's washed Yirgacheffe, an everyday staple that has become many drinkers' first specialty coffee. It is known for white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity and a tea-like body, and its moderate price makes it an easy, reliable daily brew.

For a single-origin lot from within Yirgacheffe, the FrontStreet Gudingding Cooperative comes from the village of Gudingding in the Worka area and follows the traditional washed method. It is clean and precise, showing jasmine florals and a bright citrus-lemon acidity with none of the bitterness people expect from coffee.

And if you want the natural side of Yirgacheffe, FrontStreet's sun-dried Red Cherry is made from 100% ripe red fruit dried whole on raised beds for three to five weeks, keeping the classic regional character while adding tropical fruit, berry juice, honeyed sweetness and a creamy, smooth texture.