Sun-Dried Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Coffee - Wenago Cooperative Premium Coffee Beans

Producer: FrontStreet Coffee house-roasted
Ingredients: House-roasted coffee beans
Shelf Life: 90 days
Net Weight: 227g
Packaging: Bulk coffee beans
Roast Level: Light roast
Sugar Content: Sugar-free
Origin: Ethiopia
Coffee Variety: Yirgacheffe

Coffee Details

Country: Ethiopia

Grade: G1

Region: Wenago

Roast Level: Light roast

Processing Method: Natural

Variety: Local heirloom

Processing Station: Wenago Cooperative

Flavor Notes: Strawberry, fresh blueberry, raisin aroma

Origin Story

Yirgacheffe itself is a small town of roughly 20,000 inhabitants. Three neighboring districts — Wenago, Kochere, and Gelena Abaya — grow coffee whose flavors are nearly indistinguishable from Yirgacheffe's, so their harvests are also sold under the Yirgacheffe regional name. Culturally and geographically, Yirgacheffe resembles its neighbor Sidamo, yet it seems uniquely blessed with favorable conditions. Top-quality Yirgacheffe brings floral notes, bright citrus acidity, lemon-toned aromatics, and a silky, smooth mouthfeel.

Introduction

This coffee comes from a single farm in Ethiopia, processed by the Wenago Cooperative.

The cooperative sits in the southern part of the Gedeb district and was founded in 2005, joining the renowned Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU) that same year. It is celebrated for producing high-quality natural Yirgacheffe and serves approximately 300 coffee farmers. The YCFCU itself was established in 2002 and — with Wenago as one of its 22 primary cooperatives — serves more than 45,000 coffee farmers across the union.

Wenago lies within the Gedeb area of the Gedeo administrative zone, a remote corner of Yirgacheffe some 75 kilometers from Dilla, the local coffee trading hub. The roads are rough: a 20-kilometer dirt track connects the cooperative to the nearest paved highway. The altitude is very high, around 1800-1900 meters, and because no chemical fertilizers or pesticides are used during cultivation, Wenago's smallholder farmers have earned Skal organic certification recognized by the European Union. Just as Kochere is famous for washed coffee, Wenago excels at natural processing — though both cooperatives produce coffee by both methods. In recent years, natural processing has become steadily more refined, a far cry from the rough methods used for hundreds of years: far greater care now goes into harvesting ripe cherries and tending the drying lots, letting the beans keep the sweetness of the fruit pulp along with subtle, charming fermented-wine notes — flavors that washed processing simply cannot achieve.

Flavor Profile

The aroma is loaded with fresh strawberry and blueberry fruit, raisin, pineapple, mango, layered complex fruits, citrus-berry notes, syrup, florals, juicy May peaches, and a whole register of vivid berry aromatics. The finish brings apricot dried fruit and sweet, lush tropical fruit.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If natural Yirgacheffe is your lane, the FrontStreet Natural Red Cherry makes a perfect companion piece: only fully red-ripe cherries are harvested and sun-dried on raised beds — turned every 2-3 hours at the start, dried for three to five weeks — producing citrus acidity, berry juiciness, honeyed sweetness, and a silky body that mirrors the Wenago style. For the washed contrast, the FrontStreet Washed Idido Cooperative from Worka offers bright citrus-lemon acidity and jasmine florals, while the everyday FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe covers the classic jasmine-citrus-tea profile at an accessible price. Brew them on a V60 at 15g, 1:15, 90-91°C.