Why do Ethiopian coffee beans vary in size? What are the characteristics of Ethiopian coffee? What coffee variety are native heirlooms?

Understanding the Diversity of Ethiopian Coffee Beans

Among FrontStreet Coffee's bean selection, Ethiopian varieties are the most numerous. Consequently, FrontStreet Coffee frequently receives "special feedback" from customers about Ethiopian beans, particularly regarding the size of the beans!

Although coffee beans are agricultural products and cannot be replicated with uniform templates like industrial goods, most of the time, the beans we buy in a single package are relatively uniform in size. The large ones aren't particularly large, and the small ones aren't particularly small. Ethiopian beans, however, are quite the opposite—they vary not only in size but also in length, coming in all shapes and forms, which can leave one with mixed feelings. Customers experiencing this uncertainty often approach FrontStreet Coffee with the question: "Is this situation normal?"

Indeed, this situation can easily cause misunderstanding. But for Ethiopian beans, it's a completely normal phenomenon. Why is this so? Let's explore three unique characteristics of Ethiopia that differ from other producing regions: varieties, harvesting patterns, and grading systems.

The Heirloom Varieties of Ethiopia

"Heirloom" is the most common variety designation we encounter for Ethiopian coffees on the market. Although in recent years, Ethiopia's "digital code varieties" (74, 75 series) and native Geisha have gained tremendous popularity, heirloom varieties remain the mainstream in Ethiopian producing regions. So the question arises: what exactly are heirloom varieties?

In fact, heirloom is not a single specific variety but rather a collective term referring to all coffee varieties growing in Ethiopia. As the birthplace of Arabica coffee, Ethiopia possesses countless coffee varieties. Just among those that humans have explored and documented to date, the number of recorded varieties has reached as high as 2,000. This doesn't even include those varieties that haven't been recorded or explored yet.

Therefore, as a coffee gene bank with enormous potential, Ethiopia constantly attracts attention from international coffee hunters. Everyone attempts to find high-quality varieties in Ethiopia that could rival or even surpass Geisha through exploration. At this point, the Ethiopian government faced a dilemma: on one hand, the sheer number of varieties made complete identification as difficult as ascending to heaven; on the other hand, they needed to prevent these hunters from stealing varieties! After careful consideration, the government decided to collectively name all varieties originating from Ethiopia as "heirloom." This served both protection purposes and reduced complications arising from variety identification.

Ethiopia's Unique Harvesting Models

Do you remember "The Three Major Gradings of Green Coffee Beans" that FrontStreet Coffee shared some time ago? In it, FrontStreet Coffee mentioned that Ethiopia's green bean grading standards are based on defect rate and cupping score, rather than using bean size as the grading standard like neighboring countries such as Kenya and Tanzania. The reason for establishing such grading standards, besides the complexity of varieties, is also due to a crucial factor—the mainstream planting and harvesting model in Ethiopia. This also contributed to the formation of the collective term "heirloom."

Most coffee from other producing regions comes from plantation coffee—large-scale, privately operated coffee farms. Under this model, coffee can be cultivated, harvested, processed, and sold in large quantities with uniformity, ensuring good consistency in variety and quality. However, this approach requires significant upfront investment to establish plantations. Although nearly one-fifth of Ethiopia's population relies on coffee for their livelihood, we know that the local area is not wealthy. Therefore, very few farmers in Ethiopia can establish plantations, despite the large number of people involved in coffee cultivation. Consequently, over 90% of coffee produced in Ethiopia belongs to three other categories: forest, semi-forest, and garden coffee.

Forest coffee refers to coffee harvested by farmers from wild-growing coffee trees in Ethiopia's mountain forests. These coffee trees are unmanaged and uncared for; during the coffee fruit ripening season, farmers travel back and forth through the forests to harvest them. Semi-forest coffee refers to coffee trees planted in the transitional zone between forests and farmers' living areas. Although like forest coffee, these are wild-growing trees, because they're closer to farmers' living areas, these coffee trees receive dedicated management and harvesting. Garden coffee refers to coffee that is planted and harvested by farmers themselves. Typically planted in fields or backyards within farmers' living areas. This model accounts for over 55% of Ethiopia's annual coffee production, making it the主力选手 in Ethiopian coffee.

Whether forest coffee, semi-forest coffee, or garden coffee, they all share a common characteristic—most involve mixed variety harvesting. The first two categories need no explanation, but even garden coffee grown by farmers comes from wild varieties mixed and harvested from forests. Unless there are specific requirements or designated variety plantings, farmers don't deliberately differentiate between varieties during harvesting. Many farmers to this day don't even know what varieties of coffee they're growing. Since their income mainly comes from the quantity of coffee fruit, they harvest all coffee fruits within their sight. Any mature coffee cherry, regardless of size or shape, goes into the basket! After mixed harvesting, these fruits are sold to nearby processing stations or cooperatives. Upon receiving fruits from different farmers, processing stations don't separate them by variety but instead process them uniformly before selling to green bean traders.

Therefore, whether during the planting stage, harvesting stage, or processing stage, coffee varieties are continuously mixed, mixed again, and mixed yet again. Different varieties have distinct appearance characteristics, which is why Ethiopian coffee beans vary in size and length. Because from the very beginning, they weren't a single variety. It is precisely because of this that we have unconventional names and systems like "heirloom" and "defect rate grading."

If we choose an Ethiopian coffee bean that isn't a heirloom variety, such as the ALO that FrontStreet Coffee recently introduced—which is the 74158 variety—then we can see that the beans' size and appearance are roughly uniform. This is the main difference between heirloom and single varieties.

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