New Harvest Sidamo Natural Process Guji 7.0 Coffee Beans: Hambella Guji Coffee Flavor Profile

Huagui coffee beans have long been deeply followed by domestic coffee professionals and enthusiasts. Every year before the new season's Huagui coffee beans arrive in port, the entire coffee circle is already buzzing with discussion. Everyone hopes that the new year's Huagui coffee will still have the strawberry-like sweetness and cream-like smoothness.

The latest season's Huagui 7.0 arrived in China this May, and many friends were able to buy the fresh and hot (Cantonese description for very fresh) Huagui 7.0 coffee beans at the first opportunity. But...

"Why doesn't Huagui 7.0 have the Huagui flavor?"

"Why does it taste like Yirgacheffe!"

"It's not sun-dried from the Buku Abel processing plant, which means it's not Huagui!"

After Hongshun Company listed Huagui 7.0 green coffee beans and various roasters listed Huagui 7.0 roasted coffee beans, both received doubts about the authenticity of Huagui 7.0 coffee beans. Some due to the different taste from the 2017 champion batch of Huagui coffee beans, and some because they didn't come from the Buku Abel processing plant, so they believed they weren't Huagui coffee beans.

What is Huagui coffee bean?

In 2017 TOH (This is a coffee bean competition initiated by the African Coffee Association among African producing countries), a sun-dried batch of Ethiopian native variety coffee beans from the Hambella region, under DW company's "Buku Abel" processing plant, won the 2017 TOH competition's sun-dried category championship with its rich strawberry and cream aroma.

In the same year, after the champion batch of green beans was introduced by a Beijing green bean trader, it was named "Huagui," implying the leader of all flowers, with enchanting posture. Chinese coffee enthusiasts truly got to know Huagui coffee beans in 2017 at the World Coffee Brewing Championship, when China's runner-up Li Jianfei used this batch of Huagui coffee beans to defeat the Geisha coffee beans of many participating contestants.

Therefore, "Huagui" coffee beans quickly became popular throughout the domestic coffee circle! At that time, many friends were conquered by the rich strawberry flavor of the 2017 batch of Huagui coffee beans. Many friends also believed that Huagui coffee beans must come from the Buku Abel processing plant, and that Huagui coffee should have a rich strawberry flavor.

After winning the championship in 2017, DW company further increased specialty coffee drying stations in the core producing area of Hambella Wamena Wereda, Dimtu town, where sun-drying beds are concentrated in five villages: "Buku Abel Kebele," "Tirtiro Goye Kebele," "Seke Bokosa," "Haro Soresa," and "Buku Saysay."

What everyone knows as Buku Able is actually a village in Dimtu town. However, due to previous translation issues, it was directly translated as Buku Able processing plant/station, but more accurately, it's the processing station within Buku Able.

According to Hongshun Company, which is specifically responsible for importing Huagui coffee beans, Buku Abel village is not large, about 25 kilometers in radius, which includes 3-5 processing stations, each with 20-30 drying beds.

A processing station can cover about 5 kilometers of mountainous red fruit, so each season each processing station can produce about 50-100 tons of sun-dried G1 coffee beans, which means Buku Abel village can produce about 500 tons of Huagui coffee beans each new season.

In terms of growing region and processing plant, among all these estates and processing sites, only those from the processing stations in "Buku Abel" village cover the small producing area that originally produced the champion sun-dried Huagui beans.

Although Buku Abel village's processing volume accounts for the "major share," which is why we see most Huagui comes from Buku abel. Compared to the picking range of Huagui in that year, which has already expanded, it doesn't mean that only sun-dried G1 coffee beans from processing plants in Buku Abel village can be called Huagui coffee beans.

What about other Buku xxx besides Buku abel?

They're actually neighboring villages. Places with the same surname must be close together, at most separated by a road. Just a road apart, the coffee fruits they're responsible for are certainly also from the same neighborhood, not too far apart, and the climate and terroir of the areas where everyone grows coffee beans are not much different.

At the same time, because many coffee farmers send their fruits to the processing stations in Buku abel village, the processing volume of other villages is naturally not so large. When exporting, one must be honest - whichever village processed it, that village is marked, but this doesn't affect the fact that these are all coffee beans managed under DW company.

Therefore, sun-dried G1 coffee beans processed in the five villages of "Buku Abel Kebele," "Tirtiro Goye Kebele," "Seke Bokosa," "Haro Soresa," and "Buku Saysay" are all Huagui.

Why doesn't today's Huagui 7.0 taste like Huagui?

In the final analysis, Huagui coffee beans are actually sun-dried G1 coffee beans from the Hambella region, just ordinary and traditional sun-drying. As an agricultural product, the flavor of coffee beans is definitely affected by various factors such as annual terroir, climate, sun-drying time, and humidity.

The 2017 Huagui was delicious because the timing, location, and people were all so just right, creating its rich strawberry aroma and cream-like smoothness.

So delicious, you could say it was luck~ And luck doesn't come every year. Starting from the 2018 production season, the G1 coffee beans planted in relevant areas and sun-dried at relevant processing stations no longer had the flavor of the 2017 production season, so theoretically speaking, the term "Huagui flavor" doesn't exist.

To make a distinction, domestic green bean companies made X.0 distinctions for each subsequent year's batch. Subsequently, Huagui 2.0 was launched in 2018, and Huagui 3.0 and 3.1 were launched in 2019.

During this period, FrontStreet Coffee discovered through cupping that the flavor and aroma of small-grain Huagui coffee beans were very similar to the 2017 champion Huagui coffee beans. Initially, FrontStreet Coffee tasted flavors similar to the 2017 Huagui in the 2018 and 2019 Huagui, but the body and aftertaste were not as good as the 2017 Huagui.

By comparing different batches of Huagui, we realized that the main source of the 2017 Huagui aroma was some particularly small-grain varieties among the Huagui coffee beans, and similar small-grain coffee also appeared in the 2018 and 2019 Huagui. Sometimes, out of ten gunny sacks, several sacks of similar small-grain beans would appear. In 2019, we confirmed this information and informed the green bean supplier. Starting from 2020, Huagui split into two types: 4.0 and small-grain Huagui. Therefore, small-grain Huagui does not belong to the [X.0] series.

Last year, because the appearance of Huagui 6.0 green beans was not very attractive, FrontStreet Coffee was selling small-grain Huagui all last year and didn't list Huagui 6.0 coffee beans.

As for the new 2023 production season's Huagui 7.0, FrontStreet Coffee also got it at the first opportunity after the green beans arrived in port. According to comparative observation, this year's Huagui 7.0 green beans no longer have many appearance problems.

Because they are new season coffee beans, the moisture content will be relatively high, and the grassy smell will be more obvious. In response to this situation, FrontStreet Coffee's roaster adjusted the roasting curve and then roasted Huagui 7.0 coffee beans to a medium-light degree.

Twelve hours after roasting was completed, all FrontStreet Coffee staff conducted cupping. Through comparative cupping and the cupping results of various participants, it can be seen that the new season Huagui 7.0 dry aroma shows citrus aroma, wet aroma shows berry aroma, after slurping shows citrus-like acidity, apricot juice sweetness and mouthfeel, passion fruit aroma, and tea-like aftertaste.

Looking back at the flavor characteristics of sun-dried coffee beans from the Sidamo region: citrus sweetness, full berry aroma, tropical fruit flavors, Huagui 7.0 coffee beans can be said to be typical Sidamo sun-dried coffee beans.

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