Yirgacheffe Coffee Characteristics, Taste Profile, Brewing Methods, Flavor Description, and Grind Settings Overview

Characteristics and Taste of FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe: Brewing Methods and Flavor Descriptions

Light roasting makes the tropical-grown Yirgacheffe fruit aromas more pronounced and rich. Upon entry, there's a slight acidity like the fragrance of apples, which instead enhances the coffee's richness. The bitterness becomes aromatic and worth savoring. Fundamentally, coffee is a fruit, and being able to maintain its sweet and sour fruity flavors after high-temperature roasting is precisely what makes FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe special.

FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Process Yirgacheffe

The natural process is somewhat complex, with light fermentation wine aroma and heavier bitterness. The taste is much richer, with honey-like sweetness, cocoa notes with hints of spice, a full body, and a lasting aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Yirgacheffe

The washed process acidity is brighter, like citric acid, with a cleaner taste. Citrus aromas are more prominent, and there's some black tea sensation in the later stages.

The coffee trees of Yirgacheffe were originally cultivated by European monks (similar to Belgian monks growing wheat to brew beer), but later taken over by farmers or cooperatives. Yirgacheffe is actually composed of surrounding coffee communities or cooperatives, including Idido near Misty Valley, Harfusa, Hama, and Biroya, which all use washed processing, though a small amount of premium beans are intentionally naturally processed to enhance the charming fruit aromas and body. These mountain villages are shrouded in mist, with spring-like seasons throughout the year. Summer brings gentle breezes - cool but not hot, rainy but not humid, while winter doesn't bring frost damage. This environment nurtures the unique citrus and floral regional flavors. Coffee trees are mostly grown in farmers' own backyards or mixed with other crops in fields, with each household producing limited quantities - typical pastoral coffee. Nearly all award-winning Yirgacheffe beans come from the aforementioned coffee villages and communities.

The washed processing method can remove various impurities and defective beans through each step, resulting in more uniform appearance of the processed green beans, which are generally considered to have higher quality. However, due to the numerous and complex processing steps, if any环节 such as fermentation tank hygiene management is not up to standard, coffee beans may acquire unpleasant over-fermented flavors.

Coffee trees are mostly grown in farmers' own backyards or mixed with other crops in fields, with each household producing limited quantities - typical pastoral coffee. These mountain villages are shrouded in mist, with spring-like seasons throughout the year. Summer brings gentle breezes - cool but not hot, rainy but not humid, while winter doesn't bring frost damage. This environment nurtures unique citrus and floral regional flavors.

FrontStreet Coffee's natural process Yirgacheffe has strict standards for collecting red cherries (the fruits of coffee trees). Before sun-drying the coffee cherries, unripe green cherries or defective cherries are manually removed. During the sun-drying process, damaged or moldy cherries are further removed. After two weeks, the fructose and essence from the pulp fully penetrate the coffee beans, and moisture content drops to 12%. The hardened pulp, mucilage layer, and parchment are then scraped off together with a hulling machine. The extracted coffee beans must undergo density and color testing. After eliminating defective beans, workers finally visually remove any missed defective beans, layer by layer of screening and selection, creating FrontStreet Coffee's natural process Yirgacheffe beans that are clean, refined, and have rich, charming fruit aromas.

The beans should be ground slightly coarser. Too fine will cause over-extraction (bitterness), while too coarse results in under-extraction. This requires several trials. (Here I should mention grinders - hand grinders are mostly convenient and quick, but grind very unevenly. If you really want to improve quality, it's better to choose electric grinders like Taiwan's Little Flying Eagle, Big Flying Horse, or Japan's Little Fuji. Of course, for casual home drinking, a hand grinder is sufficient.)

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473