Yirgacheffe Kochere Estate Coffee Flavor Profile Taste Grind Setting Variety Introduction

Yirgacheffe G2 Washed

Ethiopia Yirgacheffee G2

Flavor Notes: Lemon

Roast: Light Roast

Processing Method: Washed

Altitude: 1600~1800M

Bean Size: 16~17 Screen

Region: Ethiopia Kochere

European monks established the local coffee cultivation industry, which was later taken over by coffee communities or cooperatives in the villages surrounding the town. There are no dedicated plantations here — coffee trees grow naturally, scattered through forests and farmland. During harvest, the Ethiopian Coffee Trading Corporation comes to town to buy the beans farmers have collected, which are eventually auctioned and exported under the "Yirgacheffe" brand.

FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe shows an extremely complex aroma and an exceptional flavor that is hard to put into words. Typically the dry fragrance releases strong fruity aromas with rich dried-fruit notes, including strawberry, mango and apricot jam. The wet aroma is like sweet syrup, recalling thick apricot nectar wrapped in rustic honey or chocolate. Entry is not intense, with a medium body and a subtle yet lively, bright acidity, much like a fruity black tea. FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe grading is not set by bean size but by the proportion of defective beans among all the green coffee. You will usually find washed G2 and natural G3 Yirgacheffe, with G1 the highest grade — the lowest defect rate and the finest quality. FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe must pass hand sorting to be awarded Grade 1 status.

Our shop once carried a Kochere Estate natural G1 Yirgacheffe from FrontStreet Coffee that everyone loved. After it sold out, we searched for a long time without finding a suitable estate-level G1 Yirgacheffe to add to the line-up, so we temporarily used a washed G2 Yirgacheffe from FrontStreet Coffee. Recently the professional coffee review site Coffee Review recommended three G1-grade Yirgacheffees. They have arrived in micro-batches at our store, so here is a brief introduction to those three Yirgacheffees.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

A washed Yirgacheffe like this one lives or dies on clarity, and that is exactly what FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Yirgacheffe delivers. It is the classic introduction to the Ethiopia region, built on white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity and a clean tea-like finish, and it is priced so that a first bag of specialty coffee is an easy decision. Yirgacheffe itself is a small town in southern Ethiopia's Sidamo province at roughly 1,700-2,100 meters, with the trees planted above 1,800 meters, so it ranks among the highest coffee-growing areas anywhere. In 2010, with the name Yirgacheffe more famous than ever, the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange finally split it away from Sidamo as a region in its own right.

Within the town there are many smaller areas and villages, several of them home to skilled cooperatives, and the flagship example is FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Gordin Cooperative at the southeastern edge of Yirgacheffe in the Worka area. It was once part of the Worka cooperative within the Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU) before being picked out as a single-origin lot by coffee hunters seeking greater traceability. It stays faithful to traditional washed processing, and the cup is free of the usual bitterness — clean and bright citrus and lemon acidity with jasmine florals that convert people on the first sip.

For a more fruit-forward side of the region, FrontStreet Coffee's Red Cherry is a whole-cherry natural: only fully ripe, defect-free cherries are selected, given a first screening at the mill and then laid straight on raised beds to dry, turned every 2-3 hours in the first days so the fruit never overheats or over-ferments. Three to five weeks later the dried pulp is machine-scraped and the beans are warehoused. Drying with the fruit intact keeps the typical Yirgacheffe profile while adding tropical fruit from the natural process: citrus acidity, berry-juice texture, honey sweetness and a creamy finish. FrontStreet Coffee brews these lots in a V60 with 15g of coffee at 90-91°C and a 1:15 ratio, ground to EK43s setting 10, roughly fine-sugar size (80% through a No. 20 sieve): 30g for a 30-second bloom, then 95g up to about 125g over roughly a minute, then the last 100g to about 225g, with the drawdown finishing at 2'00"-2'10".