What is the Red Cherry Project? What are the Flavor Characteristics of Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry?

Introduction

In the bean list of FrontStreet Coffee, you'll find a particularly dazzling name—Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry! So what's the story behind this coffee bean?

The Red Cherry Project

The core concept of the Red Cherry Project is to use fully red coffee cherries for processing to improve coffee quality. Looking at it today, processing fully red cherries isn't anything new (isn't it理所当然 to use fully red cherries?). But back in 2007, this was a landmark innovative event.

In 2007, Trabocca, the largest green bean merchant in the Netherlands, proposed the "Red Cherry Project" (ORC) in pursuit of high-quality Ethiopian beans—a project aimed at improving the quality of small-scale farms.

Previously, whether it was local processing stations or green bean traders, they would try their best to lower the purchase price of coffee cherries to achieve higher profits. For coffee farmers, their income was determined by the quantity of coffee cherries sold, so they didn't care much about quality. The exploitation by green bean merchants and the farmers' pursuit of quantity created a vicious cycle of coffee bean quality. Therefore, Trabocca recognized this issue and knew it must break this deadlock, and thus, the win-win "Red Cherry Project" was born.

The project requires not only harvesting fully red cherries but also doing so entirely by hand, but this is just the most basic requirement—the project is far more complex than that. The main purpose is to encourage coffee farmers. Before the harvest season, Trabocca, the largest coffee bean merchant in the Netherlands, invites all Ethiopian farms to produce small batches of about 1500-3000 kg (25-50 bags) of beans for them. Women can only pick fully 100% mature red cherries, which makes a significant difference in the flavor of the brewed coffee. Therefore, meticulous, sharp-eyed, and hardworking Ethiopian women are important drivers of the Red Cherry Project.

The Red Cherry Project is also an enhancement approach that encourages farms to put more effort into the screening and bean selection process. These coffees are relatively more expensive. The Red Cherry Project includes washed, natural, semi-washed, semi-natural, and experimental coffees, with main production areas including Yirgacheffe, Sidamo, Bonga Forest, Lekempti, Kembata, Illubabor, Harar, Limu, and in 2011, the Golocha production area (near Harar) was added, among others. These all have unique flavors that can fully showcase the character of Ethiopian coffee.

First, there are high cupping score requirements. In cupping rooms in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Amsterdam, Netherlands, Trabocca re-screens the coffee received from producing areas and judges whether the beans meet standards through two cupping sessions in Ethiopia and the Netherlands. Coffee beans that meet the standards are organized by Trabocca for auction to coffee bean buyers worldwide. Generally, coffee beans auctioned through this platform can reach prices more than 4 times the international general coffee spot price, with the highest even reaching 20 times.

Second, production quantities are required to be small, with high quality requirements. To ensure enough energy to care for these top-quality local Ethiopian beans, Trabocca proposed that the beans participating in the project must be produced in small batches, with production quantities approximately between 1500kg-3000kg.

Finally, Trabocca has invested significant attention and resources into this project, giving it great importance. Trabocca has donated new natural drying racks, shade nets, generators, and other equipment locally. At the same time, they provide financial loan support, new hardware equipment, and production processing knowledge and technology to help farmers improve their production levels. Moreover, through real-time monitoring, safe transportation, and other methods, they ensure that the beans from the "Red Cherry Project" receive the best care at every stage.

Specifically, the Red Cherry Project encourages coffee farmers to be more attentive to every process of coffee bean picking and processing by increasing the purchase price of high-quality green coffee beans. This produces coffee beans with better quality and taste, which can gain better recognition in the terminal market, thus balancing the relatively high coffee purchase prices.

Although the advantages of Red Cherry Project coffee beans may not seem significant today, the project has made tremendous contributions to the specialization of coffee.

How Does FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Red Cherry Perform?

FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Red Cherry uses fully red cherries from the Aricha farm processed naturally. Each small coffee farmer at the Aricha farm owns an average planting area of about 0.6 hectares, composed of hundreds of coffee farmers. The planting altitude is nearly 2000 meters, with significant temperature differences and fertile soil, providing an excellent growing environment. Hand-harvesting of fully red cherries can maximize the lower limit of coffee quality.

The green beans are light yellow, full-bodied, with intact appearance and low defect rate, belonging to G1 grade.

For the single-origin pour-over Red Cherry, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium-light roasting. After roasting, the coffee beans have uniform color with distinct berry aromas.

When ground (to pour-over fine grind: 80% pass-through rate with a #20 standard sieve), the rich berry and fermented aromas are intense.

For brewing, use 15g of coffee powder, with a ratio of 1:15, water temperature of 90°C, and V60 filter cup.

The brewing method is three-stage: First stage, pour 30g of water and let it bloom for 30 seconds. Second stage, pour 100g of water in circular motions from the center outward. Third stage, when the coffee bed is exposed, pour 95g of water. Total extraction time is 1 minute 50 seconds.

Flavor: Aroma of ripe fruits, with distinct fermented notes upon entry, green grapes. As the temperature slightly decreases, there's lemon acidity and creamy smoothness, with a juice-like sensation of ripe grapes in the finish.

Important Notice :

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