Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Aricha Coffee Beans: How to Brew Juicy Natural Process Aricha Coffee

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The Aricha coffee bean is well-known to Ethiopia enthusiasts. This bean scored an impressive 95 points on the international cupping website Coffee Review, demonstrating its exceptional quality. Whether considering the appearance, consistency, freshness of the raw beans, or the dry aroma and flavors presented by the coffee, everything is quite excellent. The 2019 harvest season Adorsi processing station Aricha won the natural process category championship in the TOH competition with 91 points. Considering all these high-scoring beans, FrontStreet Coffee couldn't resist acquiring this coffee bean.

Where Does Aricha Come From?

Aricha is named after the Aricha kebele in Ethiopia's Yirgacheffe region. There is a village called Aricha kebele not far to the east of Yirgacheffe town, approximately 8 kilometers from the center of Yirgacheffe. Kebele is the smallest administrative unit in Ethiopia, with a scale of about 500 households (equivalent to 3,500-4,000 people), similar in size to a community.

Most coffee in this region comes from wild varieties in local native forests and naturally cultivated varieties by local indigenous people. Therefore, the coffee tree varieties in this area are very diverse, often containing up to 20-30 varieties in a single batch. Since they are harvested from native forests above 1850 meters altitude, they cannot be named by estate names, so they are named after the harvesting region Aricha.

T.O.H Competition

Taste of Harvest

The "Taste of Harvest Cupping Competition" is a raw bean competition held among African coffee-producing countries by the African Fine Coffees Association (AFCA), similar to the Cup of Excellence in Central and South America. Currently, there are seven member countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, and the Republic of Congo.

The competition is divided into regional competitions and the entire Africa competition. In the preliminary round, batches with cupping scores below 80 points are eliminated. TOH selects the highest quality raw beans from each producing region, which are cupped and scored by domestic and international judges based on Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) standards.

Adorsi Processing Station

The Adorsi processing station is owned by Testi Coffee, a coffee export company operated by the Yonis family and established by Faysel A. Yonis in 2009. In terms of competition results, the 2019 harvest season champion batch of Aricha scored 91 points, while the 2018 harvest season Mulan scored 88 points in the same competition. The 2019 Aricha scored 3 points higher than Mulan.

FrontStreet Coffee, through cupping the 2019 harvest season Aricha coffee beans, found its rich flavors make it resemble a "fruit bomb." The entry offers gentle citrus aromas with berry and peach notes, a smooth mouthfeel with milky fragrance, while also containing lemon and grapefruit acidity. The aftertaste shows rich variations, with floral aromas being the ultimate expression of this bean!

Coffee Varieties

Heirloom

The Aricha coffee bean variety is Heirloom. Most Ethiopian coffee varieties are named this way because there are simply too many varieties. It's like a natural gene bank for Arabica. On one hand, there are numerous varieties, making identification and classification difficult; on the other hand, the Ethiopian government,出于protection considerations, is unwilling or unable to disclose this variety information. This is also why Ethiopian coffee beans vary in size.

The Aricha coffee beans acquired by FrontStreet Coffee are slightly larger in size, with slightly lower density and moisture content. The Yirgacheffe Aricha Grade 1 raw beans have a yellow-green color, typical of natural process coffee, with uniform and full particles and few defective beans.

Region: Yirgacheffe Aricha

Processing Station: Adorsi

Altitude: 1900-2000m

Processing Method: Natural

Grade: G1

Variety: Heirloom

Coffee Bean Processing Method

Natural

In farm natural processing, coffee cherries are selected and placed on sun-drying beds, turning from red to deep brown over two weeks. After the storage period, the raw coffee beans are removed while simultaneously removing all dried husk, pulp, and parchment layers. FrontStreet Coffee believes that the advantage of this natural processing method is that it can completely isolate from soil contact that might cause off-flavors, while also improving the efficiency of coffee cherry drying, more completely presenting the original fruit flavors of the coffee. This work improves overall cupping quality and consistency after roasting.

After two weeks of drying treatment, Aricha is dried into deep brown husks and stored until the flavors mature. When the coffee flavors have matured and before shipment, the dried pulp and parchment are removed together. Then underripe, overripe, and fermented beans are picked out to prepare for shipment!

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Records

Yangjia 800N roaster (300g batch size): Enter beans at 165°C, heat at 120, damper open at 3; Return to temperature point at 1'36", when furnace temperature reaches 148°C, open damper to 4, heat unchanged; When furnace temperature reaches 166°C, bean surface turns yellow, grassy aroma completely disappears, entering dehydration stage, heat unchanged, damper at 5;

At 7'37", ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, toast aroma clearly turns to coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this point, listen carefully for the sound of first crack, which begins at 8'38", damper unchanged, develop for 1'45" after first crack, unload at 195°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Experience

Filter: V60 #01

Water Temperature: 90°C

Coffee Amount: 15g

Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15

Grind Size: Medium-fine (78% retained on #20 sieve screen)

FrontStreet Coffee brewing method: First wet the filter paper and preheat the filter cup and coffee pot. Use 30g of water for bloom for 30 seconds, small circular pour to 125g for segmentation, when water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop pouring. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the filter cup (timing starts from bloom), extraction time is 2'00".

Brewing flavors: Smells of ripe fruit aromas, with obvious fermented flavors upon entry, green grapes. As the temperature slightly cools, there's lemon acidity and creaminess, with mature grape juice sensation in the finish.

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