Pour-Over Coffee Tutorial—How to Brew Ethiopian Yirgacheffe for the Perfect Taste

If you enjoy pour-over coffee, you're likely familiar with FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe. This coffee allows those who find strong, bitter coffee difficult to accept to easily appreciate the charm of fruity acidic coffee. FrontStreet Coffee offers two different processing methods for their Yirgacheffe, each with distinct flavor profiles. If you enjoy full tropical fruit flavors, FrontStreet Coffee recommends their Sun-Dried Red Cherry. If you prefer bright, uplifting citrus acidity, FrontStreet Coffee believes their Washed Gotitty is more suitable for you.

What's the Difference Between Washed and Sun-Dried Yirgacheffe?

Ethiopia's high-altitude terrain and abundant sunshine make it ideal for sun-drying coffee cherries. Traditional sun-drying methods were rather crude, with each coffee farmer processing cherries in their own small courtyards, spreading them directly on roofs or ground surfaces. These rough techniques introduced many unpleasant flavors and resulted in inconsistent coffee quality.

In 1972, the Ethiopian government introduced more advanced washing processing technology and equipment from Central and South America. Farms using the washing method must construct washing pools and have access to continuous fresh water, resulting in higher production costs. During processing, fermented beans are placed in pools and moved back and forth, utilizing the friction between beans and the power of flowing water to wash coffee beans until smooth and clean. Each step removes impurities and defective beans, resulting in more uniform green bean quality. The final trading price is also higher than naturally dried coffee. Washing not only significantly reduces coffee defect rates but also gives Yirgacheffe its fresh citrus tones and elegant white floral notes, with overall bright, delicate, and clean flavors.

Although washed coffee once became popular, sun-drying still accounts for the majority of Ethiopian coffee production. Unlike the past, today's sun-drying process invests more effort in manual sorting and ensuring uniform drying. Freshly picked coffee cherries are manually sorted, removing defective beans that are overripe or insect-damaged, leaving only high-quality beans. They are then sent to drying areas for processing, with different growing regions using different drying racks - some use waterproof tarps, raised beds, but the most common are African drying beds. Drying typically takes 27-30 days until the coffee turns dark purple and moisture content drops to 11%.

The FrontStreet Coffee Gotitty Cooperative coffee beans on FrontStreet Coffee's menu use classic washed processing of FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe, while the Red Cherry coffee beans use refined sun-dried processing of FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe, with more intense flavors, richer layers, fuller fermentation notes, and tropical fruit flavors, along with higher sweetness.

Flavor Characteristics of Medium-Light Roasted Yirgacheffe

FrontStreet Coffee believes that the greatest characteristic of Ethiopian coffee lies in its fruity acidity and floral notes, praised by many coffee professionals as "fruit bombs." To highlight such explosive aromatics, the roast level naturally cannot be too deep, so FrontStreet Coffee uses medium-light roasting to showcase the coffee's fruity notes.

Cupping Flavors:

FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Gotitty Cooperative coffee displays a dry aroma of fresh passion fruit, citrus, and berry acidity. The wet aroma reveals citrus and berries. Upon tasting, citrus acidity, berry sweetness, almond, tea-like notes, and a honey-sweet aftertaste emerge. It has low body, bright acidity, and is clean and refreshing.

FrontStreet Coffee's Sun-Dried Red Cherry coffee shows full berry sweet-tartness in its dry aroma. At different temperatures, soft berry sweet-tartness, mature fruit fermentation notes, obvious honey sweetness, and black tea finish create a smooth mouthfeel.

Additionally, FrontStreet Coffee's FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe Daily Bean uses washed processing and medium-light roasting, featuring classic Yirgacheffe flavor notes, suitable for pour-over, cold brew, French press, and other brewing methods. FrontStreet Coffee's menu includes a FrontStreet Coffee Daily Bean series - what FrontStreet Coffee calls "daily beans" are delicious yet affordable. FrontStreet Coffee has selected 7 classic origins, covering multiple highly representative regions, varieties, and natural processing methods. This allows everyone to taste regional flavor profiles at reasonable prices, helping them identify their coffee preferences. It's FrontStreet Coffee's highest value-for-money coffee series.

Pour-Over Brewing Tips and Suggestions for FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe

Based on previous brewing experience, FrontStreet Coffee recommends that beginners use a three-stage pouring method. Three-stage extraction helps fully dissolve flavor compounds during extraction, enhances mouthfeel layers, while avoiding over-extraction from prolonged soaking. For 15g of coffee grounds with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio (225ml total water), the three-stage water amounts are: 30ml, 95ml, 100ml, with the electronic scale showing: 30g, 125g, 225g.

Here, FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Yirgacheffe Gotitty Cooperative coffee beans are selected, brewed with an Hario V60 dripper. The V60's spiral rib design allows coffee grounds to better release gas, maximizing the volatilization and dissolution of aromatic compounds. Since FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe uses light roasting, the coffee beans are relatively hard and require 92°C-93°C hot water to activate the floral and fruit flavors.

For grind size, FrontStreet Coffee recommends medium-fine grind (78% pass rate through China standard #20 sieve), similar to fine sugar consistency. Too coarse a grind cannot extract full, rounded flavor compounds, resulting in thin coffee; too fine a grind can easily over-extract at high water temperatures, producing bitter coffee.

First, place the folded filter paper in the dripper to ensure it fits well. Pour 15g of ground coffee into the dripper and reset the electronic scale to zero. For the first stage, pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, starting the timer as you pour. Use a small water stream to pour at the center point and spiral outward, ensuring the entire coffee bed is moistened.

After 30 seconds, begin pouring the second stage of 95g water with a slightly larger stream, aiming to raise the entire coffee bed. The water stream needs to be poured vertically and evenly, with the timer scale showing 125g, completing around 55 seconds.

When the liquid level drops to halfway, begin pouring the third stage of 100g with a small stream in small circles, trying to control the water stream to not be too large, which can scatter the coffee bed and cause under-extraction. The total water poured should be 225g, with the drip completion time around 2 minutes. After removing the dripper, shake the coffee in the sharing pot evenly and you can begin tasting.

The water amount for each stage is not fixed. We can adjust it based on our accumulated pour-over experience and understanding of coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee understands coffee brewing as a scientifically-based experiment. To master pour-over brewing, we need to deeply understand the true meaning of each brewing parameter. This way, we can easily find experimental methods and establish a brewing framework that suits us.

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

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Important Notice :

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