How does the coffee bean process shape Sidamo and Guji flavor?

Sidamo and Guji are two Ethiopian specialty coffee regions whose beans reach the cup mainly through natural processing. Sidamo green beans look slightly grayish with uneven granule sizes, and the natural method leaves the whole fruit intact so sugars in the skin and pulp join the fermentation, giving clear fruity acidity, a smooth mouthfeel, and floral, herbal aromas.

Ethiopia grows coffee on high-altitude rainforest highlands, where annual rainfall runs about 1,000 to 2,000 mm and the main rainy season falls from June to August. Conditions like these shape where do you grow coffee beans in the country, and they help explain how the coffee bean process behind natural Huakui lots builds the berry and floral notes associated with Sidamo and Guji.

Ethiopia, as the birthplace of coffee, is home to numerous distinctive specialty coffee regions. Sidamo rivals Yirgacheffe and is world-famous for its natural-process Huakui coffee; the Guji region rose rapidly after gaining independence thanks to its superior terroir, becoming the core producing area for Huakui coffee. This article systematically reviews the terroir characteristics of the Sidamo and Guji regions, the naming origin and version evolution of Huakui coffee, and the cultivation model of the West Arsi region, and explains in detail Front Street's brewing parameters and flavor performance for natural Sidamo, helping coffee lovers fully understand the unique charm of these two beans.

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Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, with an extremely rich variety of coffee plants within its borders; coffee varieties around the world almost all originate from Ethiopia. Each Ethiopian coffee region has its own distinctive flavor. Sidamo and Yirgacheffe both belong to Ethiopia's specialty coffee regions, and both washed and natural processing are used. The Yirgacheffe region is best known for its washed Yirgacheffe coffee, while the Sidamo region is renowned for its natural Huakui coffee. At Front Street, both coffee beans from the Sidamo region use natural processing.

Sidamo green beans are slightly grayish in color, with uneven granule sizes, some coarse and some fine. Their acidity can be mild or intense, their body can be heavy or light, and they combine sweetness with spicy aromatics—belonging to the garden coffee type of the southern Ethiopian highlands. Compared with general African coffee, Sidamo has clear fruity acidity, a smooth mouthfeel, and refined floral and herbal aromas.

Ethiopia's climate shows clear polarization—half is humid rainforest, half is arid desert and gobi—and coffee cultivation is mainly concentrated in the high-altitude rainforest areas. The main local rainy season is from June to August. Annual precipitation in the main coffee-producing areas ranges from 1,000 to 2,000 mm, and the average annual temperature ranges from 15 to 30 degrees Celsius. Ethiopia has many high mountains and a tropical cloud forest landscape, and coffee is mainly grown on the highlands. High-altitude areas have lower temperatures and fewer pests and diseases, basically requiring no pesticides; at the same time, coffee cherries ripen more slowly, allowing the coffee trees more time to accumulate nutrients.

Sidamo Coffee Region

The Sidamo area is located in southern Ethiopia, extending east to the Arsi and Bale administrative zones and west to the Gamogofa administrative zone. Sidamo coffee is grown at altitudes between 1,400 and 2,000 meters. The local industry is mainly agricultural, and the main coffee-growing areas are distributed around the Great Rift Valley. In recent years Sidamo has developed quite rapidly and has become an important coffee export hub. Sidamo's coffee flavors are extremely diverse; different soil types, microclimates, and countless native coffee varieties make the coffee produced in each town show obvious differences and distinctive characteristics.

The most famous coffee-growing areas in the Sidamo region are Guji (GUJI) and West Arsi. Most of the Sidamo region uses the natural processing method to process green coffee beans. Front Street believes that the natural processing method gives Sidamo coffee beans rich fruity aromas and a smooth mouthfeel.

Guji Region

The Guji region was once part of the Sidamo region, but in 2010 it was made an independent new region by the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX). The Guji region is located southeast of Yirgacheffe, with complex and varied terrain including towering mountains, valleys, and plains. The geology of this area consists of nutrient-rich black soil (Vertisol), with soil depth approaching two meters, and an average altitude above 1,800 meters. The geographical characteristics create a significant temperature difference between day and night, giving the area all the terroir conditions needed to produce high-quality specialty coffee. When it comes to what made the Guji region famous, Front Street must mention the bean Huakui.

The Huakui bean comes from Hambella, located in Guji, Ethiopia's largest coffee-producing region, and administratively part of Oromia State. To the west, Hambella faces Yirgacheffe's Kochere across the mountains; between the two producing areas lies a highland about 3,200 meters high and about 30 kilometers wide. To the southeast, north, and south it borders Guji's Shakiso, Uraga, and Kercha sub-regions respectively, making it Ethiopia's highest-altitude coffee sub-region.

At present, the Hambella region has nearly 20 processing plants of various sizes. In 2017, Ethiopia's DW Green Bean Company sent their coffee beans to the TOH (the Taste Of Harvest) green bean competition hosted by the African Coffee Association. A natural batch from the "Buku Abel" processing plant won the TOH Ethiopia championship with its rich strawberry and cream aroma. That year this batch of green beans was introduced into China by Beijing green bean trader Hongshun. In the same year, Li Jianfei used this bean to win second place in the 2017 World Brewers Cup China region. This Ethiopian bean stood out particularly among many Gesha competition beans, and was therefore given the name "Huakui." (Geisha in Japanese means geisha, while Huakui refers to the leading geisha, highlighting this bean's outstanding quality.)

Therefore, if Huakui coffee is understood in a narrow sense, only the batch from the 2017 TOH natural group champion that entered China can be called Huakui coffee. Of course, it would be a pity if such a wonderful name were only a fleeting appearance. Afterwards, Hongshun continued to introduce coffee beans from the "Buku Abel" processing plant in the Hambella region and named them Huakui 2.0, Huakui 3.0, and Huakui 3.1 to distinguish them from the earlier Huakui coffee and represent different batches or harvest seasons. At this time Huakui coffee still maintained certain characteristics, namely that it was purchased and introduced by Hongshun, and the producing area remained locked to the "Buku Abel" processing plant in Hambella.

Subsequently, DW Company added processing plants in Dimtu, the core production area of Hambella, namely "Buku Abel," "Buku Saysay," "Haro Soresa," and "Tirtiro Goye," with an annual coffee output of about 1,100 tons. From the perspective of growing region and processing plant, among all these estates and processing sites, only coffee from the processing area of the "Buku Abel" processing plant covers the small production area that originally produced the natural coffee bean "Huakui." In other words: only coffee beans produced by Buku Abel and processed naturally can truly be called "Huakui."

The area where Huakui is grown is at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters. Around the coffee trees grow tropical plants such as sugarcane and bananas, providing appropriate shade for the coffee trees. Coffee is essentially a crop and is naturally closely related to climate and environment, so its flavor varies from year to year. The naming method of Huakui X.0 is based on the year: Huakui 2.0 was released in 2018, Huakui 3.0 and 3.1 in 2019, Huakui 4.0 in 2020, Huakui 5.0 in 2021, Huakui 6.0 in 2022... Now Huakui 8.0 has also officially launched, becoming a daily-drinker coffee bean on many coffee lovers' must-buy lists.

West Arsi Region

West Arsi is located between the famous Yirgacheffe coffee-growing area and Hararge, at an altitude between 1,900 and 2,200 meters. It lies in the western part of the Sidamo region, and the name of the area comes from a branch of the Oromo people who have long lived there.

West Arsi consists of three woredas (Ethiopia's third-level administrative divisions): Arsi, Bale, and East Shewa. About 88.52% of West Arsi's population is Oromo, which is of great significance in coffee history because they were the earliest tribe in human history to drink coffee, and half of the coffee produced in Ethiopia comes from this region.

Coffee cultivation in the West Arsi region uses a smallholder model. The average farm size of each smallholder is not large, about 2 to 3 hectares, but even so it is often slightly larger than the usual 1.5 to 2 hectares in most parts of Ethiopia. Although current coffee cultivation technology is still in the development stage, compared with other producing areas, coffee cultivation technology in West Arsi is developing very rapidly. Coffee farmers do not need to hire temporary or full-time workers, but instead select coffee with the help of family members. This allows them to better control coffee quality, and processing stations usually pay extra for fully ripe red cherries, greatly increasing the enthusiasm of coffee farmers.

The Coffee Variety of Huakui

Like many Ethiopian coffee beans, the variety of Huakui coffee is also what we often hear called "heirloom." The garden cultivation system is the production model on which the vast majority of Ethiopian smallholders depend for their livelihood. Heirloom varieties are the "unknown varieties" from their backyards. The coffee trees may have been left by a previous owner of the land, or obtained through sharing among neighbors, or perhaps cultivated from seeds from another producing area. Various coffee plants are mixed with other cash crops on the land, and are picked and sold only when ripe.

Therefore, Heirloom does not refer to a single type of coffee variety; it represents a blend of green beans from the place of origin. The coffee brings together the harvests of multiple smallholders from the same period and combines them. A single batch may contain dozens or even hundreds of unidentified varieties. Precisely because there are differences among varieties and each blending method is different, these coffees vary in bean size, dimensions, and shape—some large, some small, some long, some round—a bit like a hodgepodge.

Coffee Bean Processing Methods

Sidamo coffee beans are processed in two ways: washed and natural. In the washed method, after selecting high-quality cherries, the skin and pulp are removed, then the beans are soaked and fermented in a tank, and afterwards dried until the moisture content is about 12%. The natural method is relatively much simpler: using sunlight, the cherries are directly dried to a moisture content of about 12%, and then the skin and pulp are removed.

Different processing methods also lead to differences in the flavors presented by the coffee beans. Washed processing better reflects the original citrus acidity and floral-herbal aroma of Sidamo coffee beans, while natural processing adds aroma on top of the original flavor.

Natural Sidamo tastes close to floral, but with a slight earthy note. Washed has a bit of nutty fruit aroma and a slight cocoa aroma, but what both share is a smooth mouthfeel and viscosity, along with pleasant, comfortable acidity and aroma. Light or medium roasts are suitable for single-origin brewing, while medium or dark roasts are suitable as a base for blended coffee and good Espresso.

Front Street's parameters for brewing Sidamo coffee:

As a light-roasted Sidamo coffee, Front Street chose: V60 dripper, water temperature 90°C, water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, coffee dose 15g, grind size (80% passing through China's No. 20 standard sieve)

A staged extraction is used, with blooming using twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds, that is, 30 grams of water for a 30-second bloom. The reason the blooming process is needed is to allow the coffee grounds to release internal carbon dioxide gas, thereby making the later stages of extraction more stable. Pour in a small stream in a circular motion until 125 grams, then pause; continue pouring until 225 grams and stop. After the water in the dripper has dripped through, remove the dripper. Start timing from the beginning of pouring; the extraction time is 2'00". Next, pick up the entire cup of coffee and swirl it to mix evenly, then pour it into a cup for tasting.

[Natural Arsi Coffee Flavor]: It smells of berries and honey. On the palate, a jam-like sweetness spreads throughout the mouth, very sweet, with nectarine notes in the finish and a juicy mouthfeel. After cooling, it is more like a cup of juice with plum and nectarine flavors.

[Natural Huakui 8.0 Coffee Flavor]: The floral and fruity aromas are very obvious—citrus, passion fruit, strawberry, oolong tea—with high sweetness.

In the flavor comparison of these two beans, Arsi's fruity sweetness and juiciness are slightly superior. Especially when hot, the jam and honey flavors are irresistible, and after the temperature drops, the juicy quality becomes even more obvious and very pleasant.

Huakui, on the other hand, leans toward tropical fruit flavors, and the alternating contrast between sweetness and acidity is very surprising. Compared with the two, Huakui has a stronger fermented quality.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.