What is Flower Queen Coffee? What's the difference between Flower Queen 8.0 and 7.0? Is Flower Queen the same as Geisha?

The FrontStreet Ethiopia Sidamo Flower Queen, listed on FrontStreet Coffee's bean menu, has become an essential staple for countless fruit-acid coffee lovers. It has now reached its 8th year since debut, and the latest batch from the new season follows the long-standing naming convention, marketed as "Flower Queen 8.0." Tasting the new Flower Queen has become the top priority for loyal fans. So how does this year's Flower Queen 8.0 taste, and does it have that "Flower Queen flavor"? Follow FrontStreet Coffee through today's retrospective.

What is "Flower Queen Coffee"?

FrontStreet Coffee's Sidamo Flower Queen is a sun-dried coffee from Ethiopia's Hambella region, with the full English name "Ethiopia Guji Hambella Buku Abel." Broadly speaking, it is a champion bean from Ethiopia's Guji region; more precisely, it is a sun-dried batch from the smaller Hambella Buku Abel processing station. In stark contrast to the bumpy origins of Geisha, FrontStreet Coffee's Sidamo Flower Queen has been popular in every specialty coffee shop since its launch in 2017, thanks to its distinctive strawberry cream aroma—truly reaching its peak on debut.

Perhaps because their translated names are semantically similar and both are explosive representatives of floral and fruity coffee, many newcomers mistakenly think Flower Queen is Geisha, or Geisha is Flower Queen, and some even spread the notion that Flower Queen is top-grade Geisha. In fact, they are completely different concepts.

Why is it called "Flower Queen"?

Before "Flower Queen Coffee" became Flower Queen, it was an award-winning, competition-grade coffee from Ethiopia. In February 2017, when Ethiopia's DW Coffee Company participated in the TOH, the Ethiopia National Taste of Harvest competition organized by the African Fine Coffee Association, it submitted a sun-dried coffee from the Sidamo region's Hambella Buku Abel processing station. With its rich berry aroma and cream-like texture, it won the championship in the sun-dried category that year.

That same year, this championship batch was selected by a Beijing green bean trader. Because of its champion status, it was named Flower Queen and introduced to the domestic market, symbolizing the first among a hundred flowers, outshining all others. Shortly afterward, this Flower Queen was used as competition beans by a China-region brewing competitor, defeating many opponents using Geisha on site and winning the runner-up position that year. That was the first time Flower Queen made its name in China.

As the heat from the competition stage continued to rise, this traditional sun-dried bean from the Buku Abel processing station successfully debuted. Combined with its affordable price and pleasant flavor, it quickly became widely recognized in the circle as a high-quality Ethiopian coffee.

What does Flower Queen [X.0] mean?

Coffee bean naming usually follows certain patterns, and once established they do not change. Geisha is a variety, Blue Mountain is an origin, and Gudingding is a processing station. FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Queen from Ethiopia's Sidamo region is particularly special, however: like Apple's iPhone, it needs a new version name each year before going to market. Why?

Before this bean was called Flower Queen, it only had the English name "Hambella." Put plainly, what we call Flower Queen Coffee is a traditional sun-dried G1 coffee from the Hambella region, with Buku Abel processing station as its more precise traceability information, located in Dimtu town.

During each coffee harvest season, from December to January, the Buku processing station organizes farmers to pick fully red cherries with sugar content reaching above 30. The selected fruit is placed on African raised beds for drying. Because the local day-night temperature difference is large, farmers take measures to shade the fruit from the sun at noon to avoid excessive fermentation from high temperatures, and use plastic covers at night to prevent sudden rain. They turn the fruit continuously throughout the day to ensure even drying while preventing sun damage or unpleasant fermentation flavors. After about 18 days of sun-drying, the moisture content of the green beans reaches only 13%, allowing machine removal of the outer shell.

After Flower Queen became famous overnight, to meet the surge in market demand, DW Company established 5 independent green bean drying processing stations in Hambella Wamena Wereda, all located within the core production area of Dimtu town. Besides the original Buku Abel, four other small villages joined in producing sun-dried coffee: Buku Saysay, Haro Soresa, Tirtiro Goye and Seke Bokosa. It is reported that at this time the Flower Queen produced annually under DW Company had already reached tens of millions of tons.

Starting from the 2018 production season, Flower Queen—FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia Sidamo Sun-dried G1 coffee—from the same growing region and the same processing stations began to show some flavor changes. FrontStreet Coffee found through cupping that although the 2018 and 2019 Flower Queen had a similar sun-dried Sidamo flavor to the 2017 Flower Queen, they were slightly inferior to the first-generation Flower Queen in body, aftertaste and other mouthfeel aspects.

So, to continue selling this sun-dried coffee from Hambella while making certain distinctions from the original version, domestic green bean trading companies counted from 2017 onward and established X.0 suffixes for each subsequent year's batch. The 2018 batch was called Flower Queen 2.0, the 2019 production Flower Queen 3.0 and 3.1, and last year's release Flower Queen 7.0, and so on. The suffix tells you which year's product the Flower Queen you bought belongs to and whether it is the latest batch.

What constitutes "Flower Queen flavor"?

Judging by the name alone, you might assume Flower Queen is a coffee with abundant floral aroma. That is not actually the case. Flower Queen's floral note is not especially strong; its fruit aroma is what stands out, with cream strawberry, mango, jackfruit, citrus, blueberry and more. It carries the unique mature tropical fruit tonality of FrontStreet Coffee's Sidamo sun-dried beans, which is why it leaves such a deep impression. It was precisely this rich berry fragrance that won Flower Queen first place in that year's TOH green bean competition.

Everyone knows that coffee is essentially an economic agricultural crop. Its annual yield and quality are first affected by climate, rainfall, altitude, soil, fertilization and weeding, and then by differences in processing detail such as sun exposure time, temperature and humidity, all of which present different flavor profiles. Flower Queen is no exception, so each year's production shows more or less difference in taste from the previous year.

So, how does this year's Flower Queen 8.0 taste?

These past few days, FrontStreet Coffee's newly acquired Ethiopia Sidamo Sun-dried Flower Queen 8.0 finally arrived. Taking advantage of its freshness, and after a year of anticipation, of course we had to taste it properly. To present the refined floral and fruity flavors of the Sidamo region without losing the coffee's caramelized aroma, FrontStreet Coffee's roaster used a medium-light roast for this FrontStreet Coffee Sidamo sun-dried bean.

FrontStreet Coffee · Sidamo Flower Queen 8.0 Coffee Beans

Country: Ethiopia
Region: Sidamo · Guji Region
Altitude: 2250~2350 meters
Variety: Local native varieties
Processing: Natural process
Flavor: Floral, jackfruit, preserved fruit, apricot, juicy sensation

The new season's FrontStreet Coffee Flower Queen 8.0 shows a richer fruit profile in its dry aroma than FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Queen 7.0, with dense aromas of guava, jackfruit, apricot, preserved fruit, citrus and pink floral notes. When hot water is poured, sweet aromas of honey, berries and chocolate rise.

Through slurping, FrontStreet Coffee first experiences the interweaving of multiple fruit flavors in this Flower Queen 8.0: dried mango, jackfruit, orange and passion fruit, with clear acidity and a juicy texture and a rounded mouthfeel. As the temperature drops slightly, the light sweetness of peach and the bright acidity of berries begin to emerge. After swallowing, a sweet aftertaste similar to drinking black tea appears, with very rich layers.

FrontStreet Coffee Barista Brewing Parameters Sharing

Dripper: V60
Water Temperature: 91-92 degrees Celsius
Coffee Dose: 15g
Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15
Grind Size: Fine sugar size (sieve through a No. 20 sieve to 80%)

First pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom. Start timing as you pour. Use a small stream, pouring from the center point and spiraling outward, ensuring the entire coffee bed is moistened.

After 30 seconds, begin the second pour with a slightly larger stream, steadily pouring 95g of water. The goal is to raise the entire coffee bed, and the stream should be poured vertically and evenly. At this point the scale shows 125g, and the pour should be completed around 55 seconds.

When the liquid level drops to about halfway, start the third pour of 100g using a small stream in small circles. Try to control the stream to avoid circles that are too large, which can easily disperse the coffee bed and cause under-extraction. The final pour amount is 225g total, with the drawdown completing in around 2 minutes.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Flower Queen and Geisha are often confused, but they are entirely different coffees, and for anyone drawn to the floral and fruity end of the spectrum, Geisha is well worth exploring. Panama is where Geisha became famous, and its finest expression is the FrontStreet Esmeralda Red Label Geisha, formally Esmeralda Special, grown at 1,600-1,800 meters. Every batch must cup above 90 points, carries its own independent number and comes from a single plot, letting buyers choose a batch by subtle flavor preference. The FrontStreet Esmeralda Green Label Geisha, originally Private Collection, blends batches from several plots to express the estate's signature high-altitude Geisha profile without plot-level detail, and its friendlier price makes it outstanding value.

Beginners who simply want a taste of the famous Geisha character should start with the FrontStreet Boquete Geisha, an entry-level Panamanian Geisha offering the classic orange-blossom honey note, an oolong-tea body and delicate fruit sweet-sour balance at an approachable price. Ethiopian Geisha, by contrast, tends to show brighter fruit acidity; the FrontStreet Granada Geisha is medium-light roasted to keep a pleasant white floral note while bringing out orange, guava and citrus sweet-sour character. For estate-level Ethiopian Geisha, the FrontStreet Gesha Village Gold Label belongs to the Gesha 1931 variety and accounts for 10% of the estate's total production, while the FrontStreet Gesha Village Red Label belongs to the Gori Gesha variety, accounts for 15% of production and scores 88 or above on the SCA 100-point scale.

Geisha is a medium-light, floral and fruit-forward coffee with a hard density that can sink and clog the dripper, so FrontStreet suggests grinding to about 78% passing a Chinese standard No. 20 sieve, roughly fine sugar, and brewing at 91 degrees Celsius. For pour-over, use 15g of coffee in a small Hario V60 at a 1:16 ratio. Start the timer, pour to 30g for a 30-second bloom, then pour in a slow spiral to 125g; when the water in the bed drops halfway, continue in a slow spiral to 225g, and finish once it has fully drained, for a total extraction time of about 2 minutes 10 seconds to 2 minutes 20 seconds. Geisha also makes a fine SOE: with the medium-roasted FrontStreet Granada Geisha SOE, extract 20g at a 1:2 ratio for 25 seconds to yield 40g, then add 200g of hot water at 1:5 for an Americano with orange, nut and blueberry notes, or 200g of milk for a latte with a creamy cookie texture.