How Does the Coffee Process Shape Huakui's Flavor?

Ethiopia's Hambela micro-region in the Guji zone produces Huakui, a natural-process bean nicknamed Floral Queen for its intense strawberry and cream aromas. Grown near the Buku Abel processing station, it shows citrus acidity and berry sweetness. The coffee process used here, natural drying, sets that fruit-forward tone and separates the bean from washed Ethiopian lots.

Ethiopia is the world's sixth-largest coffee producer and the genetic home of Arabica. In 2017 it produced about 470,000 tons of green coffee bean output and exported roughly 160,000 tons, so more than half stayed home for domestic drinking. Processing method, not only terroir or variety, decides whether a cup tastes bright and citric or dense and berry-like.

Ethiopia is a genetic treasure trove for coffee, and the Hambela micro-region in the Guji zone has risen to prominence on the world stage with a single natural-process bean. Named "Floral Queen" by a Chinese importer, this coffee has won over countless coffee lovers with its intense strawberry and cream aromas. Front Street Coffee travels to the Buku Abel processing station every year to source the seasonal Floral Queen, dissecting the flavor code of this bean layer by layer—from variety and processing method to roasting and brewing. This article systematically outlines Floral Queen's regional background, varietal characteristics, and natural processing method, and includes a three-pour V60 hand-brewing tutorial from Front Street Coffee to help readers consistently reproduce Floral Queen's citrus acidity and berry sweetness.

In Front Street's view, the variables that determine a cup of coffee's final flavor include not only regional terroir, varietal genetics, and cultivation management, but also a factor that cannot be overlooked—the green bean processing method. The processing method can both set the flavor tone for coffee and amplify the most brilliant aspects of a bean. Take Ethiopian coffee as an example: the washed process makes Yirgacheffe's citrus and lemon notes especially bright, creating a highly recognizable "Yirgacheffe taste"; while the natural process has achieved Front Street Floral Queen's signature strawberry-cream aroma, setting it apart in competitions.

In Ethiopia, coffee is not just a livelihood—it's culture

In Ethiopia, coffee cultivation supports a large number of jobs and is also an important source of foreign exchange for the country. This crop has long permeated the fabric of society and the economy. As the world's sixth-largest coffee producer, data from 2018 shows that about 100 million people worldwide depend directly or indirectly on coffee for their livelihood, with Ethiopia accounting for one-fifth of that. In 2017, the country produced about 470,000 tons of green coffee beans and exported about 160,000 tons—meaning more than half of production stayed in the country for domestic consumption. Coffee has been woven into local social life for hundreds of years. In everyday greetings, people often say "buna tetu," meaning "drink coffee"; and one of the most widely known proverbs, "buna dabo naw," literally translates to "coffee is our bread."

Ethiopia's coffee map can be divided into eight major regions: Lekempti, Limu, Illubabor, Djimmah, Harar, Teppi/Bebeka, Sidamo, and Yirgacheffe.

Sidamo

The coffee flavors of Front Street's Sidamo region are extremely diverse, thanks to the complex soil types, microclimates, and the vast number of native varieties within its borders. The terrain spans high mountains, plateaus, valleys, and plains. The geology consists of fertile, well-drained volcanic soil with a soil depth reaching nearly two meters, and the topsoil is dark brown or brown.

Sidamo is located at the southernmost tip of the Ethiopian Highlands, at an altitude of about 4,600 to 7,200 feet, bordering Kenya, southeast of Jima and directly south of the capital. It is a famous specialty coffee region in the south. Coffee from this area typically has prominent sweetness and is highly favored by enthusiasts, with an annual output of about 225,000 bags (each bag 60 kg). Its greatest advantage lies in maintaining soil fertility through organic matter cycling—fallen leaves and plant residues from surrounding trees naturally return to the soil as nutrients, which gives coffees from different towns distinct differences and personalities.

According to Ethiopia's administrative hierarchy, from largest to smallest, the levels are Region, Zone, Woreda, and Kebele, corresponding to China's province, city, district, and neighborhood. Front Street Floral Queen coffee beans come from Guji City in the Sidamo Province, and more specifically, from the Hambela Kebele in the Shakiso Woreda. Today, when people mention Hambela, most immediately think of Front Street Floral Queen—a testament to this bean's influence.

On the region's map, Guji is now labeled separately from Sidamo. Due to its advantageous geographical location and unique coffee flavors, Guji was officially separated from the Sidamo region by the ECX (Ethiopia Commodity Exchange) in 2010. Shakiso is one of the most closely watched micro-regions within Guji, with an average altitude above 1,800 meters.

Introduction to the Guji Region

The Guji region is located southeast of Yirgacheffe. Administratively, it belongs to the Guji Zone in the Oromia Region and is a regional-level green coffee producing area. As Yirgacheffe gained fame, Guji also became independent from the broader Sidamo as a sub-region. This batch of coffee is produced by smallholders of the Sirsa Cooperative near Dara Woreda in Sidamo Province. The cooperative was established in 1976 and is now a member of the Sidamo Coffee Farmers' Cooperative Union (SCFCU). SCFCU is one of Ethiopia's large cooperative unions, with about 46 member cooperatives, ranking second in the country by scale.

Front Street Ethiopian Floral Queen 4.0 Coffee Beans

Country: Ethiopia Region: Sidamo Guji Hambela Processing Station: BUKU Altitude: 2350m Variety: Dega Processing Method: Natural

Introduction to the Hambela Region

Hambella is commonly translated into Chinese as "罕贝拉." It is located within Guji, Ethiopia's largest coffee-producing region, and is administratively under the Oromia Region. To the west, Hambela faces Yirgacheffe's Kochore across a mountain, with a 3,200-meter-high, roughly 30-kilometer-wide highland lying between the two regions. To the southeast and north, it borders the Guji sub-regions of Shakiso, Uraga, and Kercha, respectively. It is Ethiopia's highest-altitude coffee sub-region (Harar is the highest-altitude main region).

Currently, the Hambela region has nearly 20 processing stations of varying sizes. In 2017, a natural-process bean from the Buku Abel processing station under DW Company won the Ethiopia National Taste of Harvest Competition championship. A Chinese green bean importer named it "Floral Queen," and at the time this bean displayed intense strawberry and cream aromas. Afterwards, DW Company expanded from one estate processing station to four in Dimtu, the core area of Hambela: Buku abel, Buku saysay, Haro soresa, and Tirtiro Goye, producing about 1,100 tons of coffee annually. The Front Street Floral Queen that Front Street Coffee purchases each year comes from the familiar Buku abel processing station, and this year's new-season Front Street Floral Queen 8.0 is no exception.

Buku Processing Station (Buku abel)

The Buku abel processing station is located in Buku abel village at an altitude of 2,200 meters. From the seedling stage, the coffee enjoys a superior "home-style" growing environment—red-brown soil rich in humus, shaded by "Enset" trees. The fruit receives ample sunlight to accumulate flavor without excessively draining nutrients, thereby preserving more of the essence within the coffee cherry.

The harvest and processing period is concentrated from December to January of the following year. The unique growing environment and natural climate together shape Floral Queen's flavor personality. Coffee farmers must harvest red cherries with a sugar content of 30 or above before they enter the natural processing stage. For the first two days of drying, workers must maintain the moisture of the red cherries so that the fruit sugars fully initiate fermentation. The high altitude allows nighttime temperatures at the processing station to drop to around 12 degrees Celsius, preventing overly fermented odors caused by excessive heat. When the midday temperature rises, farmers must promptly provide shade to prevent the fruit from sunburn. In addition, the thickness of the fruit layer is strictly controlled and turned at regular intervals 24 hours a day to ensure even sun exposure and ventilation, thereby precisely controlling the degree of fermentation.

Buku Abel means "new place" in the local dialect. Front Street checked the map and found that Buku Abel is located in southeastern Ethiopia, hidden in a very high-altitude indigenous tribal area in the Hambela zone of the Guji region, with a population of about 30,000. This small village is similar to most coffee gardens in Ethiopia: coffee trees grow in wild virgin forests, coffee farmers pass down their craft through generations, and they also plant native bananas, interplanting local native coffee varieties among the banana groves.

Strictly speaking, only natural-process coffee produced at the "Buku Abel" processing station can be called "Floral Queen coffee beans." For this reason, the station's natural-process beans in 2018 and 2019 were named Floral Queen 2.0, Floral Queen 3.0, and Floral Queen 3.1, respectively.

The Floral Queen from the 2020 new season was named Floral Queen 4.0 to distinguish it from previous versions. As the fourth year of the Floral Queen series, its production area had expanded several times by 2020, and combined with more scientific cultivation management, Front Street Floral Queen 4.0's flavor performance was even more outstanding, earning praise from many coffee enthusiasts. Therefore, Front Street Coffee also purchased this batch of new-season Front Street Floral Queen 4.0 for roasting and cupping.

Dega Coffee Bean Variety

This year, Ethiopia held the Cup of Excellence (CoE) for the first time, and the detailed classification of coffee varieties among the top 28 finalists was surprising. The 21st-ranked Dega has two completely different explanations for the origin of its name. One holds that Dega is named after a firewood tree, because the aroma of Dega during roasting resembles the smell of this wood burning; the other points out that "dega" is the root of the Ethiopian word for "highland and shade," and Dega indeed often grows at high altitudes. Unfortunately, Dega did not enter the top 14 of this CoE, so no official flavor description was collected. The Front Street Floral Queen 4.0 that Front Street Coffee acquired this time is precisely the Dega variety.

Green Bean Analysis

From this batch of Front Street Floral Queen 4.0, we can see that its bean shape is smaller than Front Street Floral Queen 3.0. The reason lies in the different varieties—Front Street Floral Queen 3.0 is an Ethiopian native variety, while Front Street Floral Queen 4.0 is the Dega variety. In addition, the beans of the two Floral Queen 3.0 lots are relatively uniform in size because they were sorted after harvest; Front Street Floral Queen 4.0 was not sorted, so the beans vary in size.

Coffee Processing Methods

Sun-drying is the most traditional processing method. After harvesting, the fruit is naturally sun-dried. The steps are as follows:

1. After harvesting, coffee farmers spread the cherries directly on the drying beds and rely on sun exposure to dry them; 2. During drying, they must turn and stir them at appropriate times to avoid uneven drying or fermentation; 3. After several days, they are dried; 4. The dried green beans are hulled to remove the pulp and parchment, yielding the green beans.

Advantages: Natural processing retains the mucilage, which itself carries sweetness. During sun-drying, sugars are transferred into the coffee beans, so the processed coffee has stronger sweetness, a full body, and rich layers.

Disadvantages: More defective beans, inconsistent bean appearance, and a tendency to absorb odors and earthy notes from the ground.

Roasting Recommendations

Cupping Report

Brewing Parameters

Brewing Equipment: HARIO V60 Coffee Grounds: 15 grams Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15 Water Temperature: 90℃ Grind Size: Medium-coarse grind (80% passing through a Chinese standard No. 20 sieve)

The ribs of the V60 dripper are curved and distributed from top to bottom, varying in length, allowing smooth air release and a relatively fast flow rate during brewing. Therefore, when using this dripper, segmented extraction is usually adopted: first, to slow the water flow rate; second, to increase the extraction yield, compensating to some extent for the under-extraction caused by the fast flow rate.

Brewing Technique

Front Street Coffee uses segmented extraction, namely three-pour brewing.

First Pour: Blooming (to help release gases)

During the roasting process from green beans to roasted beans, a series of chemical reactions and physical changes occur. Once a certain roast level is reached, a large amount of gas (mostly carbon dioxide) accumulates inside the beans.

Generally, the fresher the beans and the closer to the roast date, the more bubbles appear during blooming. Dark-roasted beans also release more gas during blooming than light-roasted beans. Front Street Coffee's beans are all freshly roasted. Customers are generally advised to rest the beans for three days first, allowing carbon dioxide to release beforehand, to avoid instability and under-extraction during brewing.

After the gases are released during blooming, the coffee particles can absorb water evenly, which helps ensure even extraction afterwards. A good bloom allows the coffee grounds to release gas quickly and fully while fully and rapidly contacting water, making extraction more even.

During blooming, pay attention to the following four points:

1. Before pouring water for the bloom, first level the coffee grounds. 2. Pour the bloom water gently. 3. During blooming, as little extracted liquid as possible should drip down; when too much extracted liquid appears in the server, reduce the amount of water poured or check the grind size. (If too much bloom water is used and a large amount of coffee liquid drips down, the water does not stay but directly carries out the outer substances of the coffee grounds, and off-flavors and astringency begin to dissolve, resulting in coffee that is both weak and has over-extracted off-flavors. If too little bloom water is used and no drops fall at all, it means the coffee grounds have not absorbed enough water and some coffee has not released enough gas, causing under-extraction.) Based on this, after many bloom tests, Front Street Coffee found that pouring an amount of water equal to twice the weight of the coffee grounds is more suitable. 4. The bloom time is about 30 seconds. When the surface of the coffee grounds finishes expanding and begins to shrink, it means blooming is complete and you can start pouring. (If the bloom time is too long, the coffee tends to develop bitterness and astringency; if too short, the soaking is insufficient, and the coffee may be under-extracted or its flavors may not fully develop.) Generally speaking, the bloom completion time differs for each bean, but Front Street Coffee believes this is not convenient for beginners, since beginners value standardization and ease of use. Therefore, provided the coffee beans are freshly roasted, Front Street Coffee recommends a bloom time of 30 seconds; experienced brewers can adjust as they see fit.

Second Pour

The second pour starts from the center, with a small stream of water injected into the bottom of the coffee bed. To keep the stream's penetration focused, the circling range should be small—about the size of a one-yuan coin—and then expand outward. For the second pour, be mindful of the water amount and try not to exceed the height of the coffee bed; that is, stop pouring when the stream circles close to the filter paper.

Third Pour

The initially thicker layer of grounds near the filter paper will become heavier as it absorbs water and slide down and thin out as the water level drops. When the water level drops to halfway, you can proceed with the third pour.

Starting from the third pour, observe the rate at which the water level drops. Likewise, start circling from the center and do not let the water amount exceed the height of the coffee bed. At this point, foam covers the entire surface. The third pour should increase the tumbling of the coffee particles, turning over all the settled grounds so that soluble substances dissolve out.

Rolling particles will come to rest once water is stopped. At this point, the flow rate caused by the dropping water level is needed to create friction among the coffee particles. So once water is stopped, the coffee grounds sink and cause clogging, which is why the pouring rhythm requires special attention. If pouring is interrupted too many times, it's equivalent to letting the coffee grounds sit in water continuously, which leads to astringency and off-flavors in the final stage of extraction.

Summary:

For Front Street Coffee brewing this Front Street Floral Queen 4.0, the overall process is: use an amount of water equal to twice the coffee dose (i.e., 30 grams of water) for blooming, with a bloom time of 30 seconds. Pour in a small stream in circles until 125 grams, then pause. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring until 225 grams and stop. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed again, remove the dripper (timing starts from the beginning of the bloom). Total extraction time is 2 minutes.

[Front Street Ethiopian Floral Queen 4.0] Flavor Description: Citrus acidity, full berry juice body, lemon black tea tea-like quality, lingering sweetness.

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