When Will Hua Kui 9.0 Be Released? What Does Hua Kui X Mean? What Is Hua Kui Coffee?

This year marks the ninth anniversary of "Huakui Coffee" becoming popular. If following the previous naming convention, this year's Huakui should have a "9.0" suffix.

However, as over half a year has passed, many friends have noticed that "Huakui 9.0" barely appears on café menus. Not only that, but even FrontStreet Coffee, which should have published reviews early, hasn't shared any tweets about 9.0. This naturally makes one wonder: could it be that there's no "Huakui 9.0" this year?

The answer is both yes and no. The new crop season's Huakui has actually been released long ago, and FrontStreet Coffee has already stocked the latest batch. According to our previous understanding of the naming convention, it should indeed be called Huakui 9.0. Unfortunately, this convention differs somewhat from what we understood, so this year's Huakui is not called Huakui 9.0. This doesn't prevent it from still being Huakui, so today FrontStreet Coffee will share with everyone why there's no Huakui 9.0 this year, and whether the new crop season's Huakui still has that consistent "Huakui flavor."

Why is this coffee called "Huakui"?

Before "Huakui Coffee" became "Huakui," its name was "Hambella," which translates to "Hambella." Like most coffees, it's named after the region where it's produced. Hambella is a sub-region of Ethiopia's Guji region, meaning Huakui is produced in Guji Hambella. To trace back in more detail, it's a natural-processed G1 coffee produced by the Buku Abel processing station located in Dimtu town of the Hambella region.

In February 2017, when Ethiopia's DW Coffee Company participated in the raw bean competition TOH (Ethiopia National Taste of Harvest competition) organized by the African Fine Coffee Association, they chose this natural-processed coffee bean from Hambella's Buku Abel processing station for the competition. This coffee bean then won the championship with its extremely intense berry aroma and creamy texture.

Subsequently, this championship-winning coffee bean was purchased by a Beijing-based raw bean trader. Based on its flavor and performance, the trader gave it the name "Huakui," meaning "the finest among hundreds of flowers, outshining all others." So from this, everyone should understand that "Huakui" is neither a variety name nor a place name, but a commercial name. After being introduced to China, Huakui was used as competition beans by a participant in the China region's coffee brewing competition. Thanks to its excellent aroma and the contestant's outstanding presentation, they achieved a commendable second-place finish. However, since most participants ranked below them had chosen Gesha as their competition beans, Huakui gained attention not only for being second place but also for "outshining numerous Geshas" that year, smoothly becoming the "rising star" of 2017.

It's worth knowing that Huakui's advantage lies not only in its excellent flavor but also in its very affordable price. So when people actually started encountering Huakui offline, they were immediately captivated by its extremely high cost-performance ratio. As word spread, Huakui's fame grew higher and higher. Huakui's explosive popularity increased market demand for it. It's reported that DW Company produced tens of millions of tons of Huakui that year. Clearly, such a large production volume couldn't be handled by previous production capacity. Therefore, after Huakui became famous, DW Company gradually expanded production capacity to meet growing demand. In addition to the Buku Abel we initially mentioned, four other small villages nearby—Buku Saysay, Haro Soresa, Tirtiro Goye, and Seke Bokosa—also joined Huakui production, thus satisfying market demand.

Why does Huakui have suffixes?

As FrontStreet Coffee has always emphasized, coffee beans are agricultural products, and their flavor is affected by many factors. Therefore, coffee flavors cannot remain stable like industrial products. Even beans from the same origin and processing station will have different tastes each year. Huakui is no exception! For example, the new crop season's Huakui in 2018 already had certain differences from the previous year's championship-winning Huakui. Although the flavor didn't change significantly, its mouthfeel, aftertaste, and other aspects were somewhat inferior.

To better sell this natural-processed coffee from Hambella going forward, the domestic raw bean trading company made a very clever decision: to distinguish subsequent Huakui sales from the original version! The method was simple—add a "version number" to Huakui. Starting from 2018, all produced Huakui would carry a suffix. For example, the 2018 batch was called "Huakui 2.0," the 2019 batch was called "Huakui 3.0," the 2020 batch was called "Huakui 4.0"... and so on. In short, starting from 2017, the number in the version number would incrementally increase each year, allowing us to understand through this suffix which year's Huakui we have and whether it's the latest batch.

According to this calculation, this year's Huakui batch should logically be version "9.0." However, this is not the case. FrontStreet Coffee jokingly mentioned in last year's Huakui 8.0 tweet that this naming method was somewhat similar to Apple's iPhone (which everyone often jokes about). As a result, the domestic raw bean trader responsible for naming Huakui this year announced that to pay tribute to Steve Jobs, this year's "version number" would skip 9 like the iPhone and use X for naming. Thus, the new batch that should have been named Huakui 9.0 was called "Huakui X."

Unlike phones, this change only appears in the suffix of the name; Huakui itself remains that natural-processed G1 coffee bean from Hambella. So some cafés, to help everyone focus on the beans themselves rather than the version name, simply removed the suffix and sold them directly under the name "Huakui"~ (including FrontStreet Coffee).

How does this year's Huakui taste?

Finally, the question everyone cares about most: does this year's Huakui still have that Huakui flavor?

Although the name "Huakui Coffee" suggests intense floral aroma as its main flavor characteristic, this is actually not the case! Compared to floral notes, fruit flavors like strawberry, mango, pineapple, blueberry, and citrus are Huakui's main characteristics, along with a creamy texture. And it was these enchanting aromas that made Huakui win the competition back then—this is what we often call the "Huakui flavor." It's worth mentioning that these are also characteristic fruit flavors of Ethiopia's Sidamo natural-processed beans. In FrontStreet Coffee's bean selection, you can also taste similar flavor characteristics in FrontStreet Coffee's Sidamo Alo and Etto. Well, without further ado, let FrontStreet Coffee share how this new crop season's Huakui actually performs~

FrontStreet Coffee:
Origin: Ethiopia · Huakui
Region: Guji Hambella
Processing Station: Buku Abel
Altitude: 2250-2350 meters
Variety: Local native varieties
Processing Method: Natural
Flavor Notes: Orange blossom, lemon, berries, blueberry, black tea

The new crop season's Huakui presents very distinct aromas in its dry fragrance, with strawberry, orange, lemon, and jasmine flower notes. When hot water is added, you can smell the sweet aromas of chocolate, cream, and berries.

Through slurping, FrontStreet Coffee tasted clear fruit notes of orange, yellow peach, mango, and pineapple in this new crop season's Huakui—a round and full juice-like sensation! With careful tasting, you can capture notes similar to orange blossom. As the temperature slightly decreases, the sweetness is enhanced, with some fruit candy flavors emerging. After swallowing, you can feel the texture of black tea! Excellent, with very rich layers.

- END -

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473