How does a Sidamo coffee farm in Guji shape the final cup?
Sidama sits in southern Ethiopia beside the Great Rift Valley, and the Guji zone to its southeast rises above 2,600 meters at its highest point. That combination of diverse soil, microclimates, and many native varieties gives Guji coffees blueberry sweetness, lemon aroma, floral notes, and bright acidity.
Traditional natural processing picks and dries cherries unevenly, often on open ground near the home, so the beans absorb off-flavors and defective beans slip in. Improved natural processing selects only fully ripe dark red cherries and controls drying before the beans are hulled. The result, once roasted and brewed, shows the berry and dried peach character typical of the area.
The Sidama region is located in southern Ethiopia, adjacent to the Great Rift Valley. Thanks to diverse soil compositions, microclimates, and rich native varieties, it nurtures coffees of strikingly different styles. The Guji region to its southeast has a higher elevation, reaching over 2,600 meters at its highest, and the coffee produced there often carries blueberry sweetness, lemon aroma, and bright acidity. This article will outline the stories of the Sidama and Guji regions, compare the differences between traditional natural processing and improved natural processing, and introduce the flavor and brewing parameters of Front Street Coffee's natural Sidama Lion King, helping coffee lovers understand what makes this bean unique.
Front Street Coffee Lion King Natural Ethiopia Sidama Guji Region
Front Street Coffee's Sidama coffees have very diverse flavors, stemming from the combined effects of different soil compositions, regional microclimates, and a large number of native coffee varieties, which gives coffees from different towns significant differences in style. The Sidama region is located in southern Ethiopia, where the local economy is mainly agricultural, and the coffee-growing belt is distributed around the Great Rift Valley.
The Guji region is located to the southeast of the Gedeo area in Sidamo and is a vast open area at an altitude of about 2,100 meters. Compared with the Yirgacheffe region, Guji has a higher elevation, exceeding 2,600 meters at its highest point, and is also noticeably higher than the ordinary Sidama area, while covering a larger area. Coffees from Guji often present blueberry-like sweetness mixed with lemon aroma, rich floral and fruity notes, hints of dried peach and honey, surprisingly bright acidity, and full berry aromas.
1. After picking, the beans are not specially sorted and processed, and their appearance and ripeness are mixed unevenly. The process is relatively rough, resulting in unstable coffee bean quality and making it easy for defective beans to be mixed in.
2. Coffee farmers usually directly find an open space near their homes for processing. The ground often contains impurities or dirt, and the coffee easily absorbs off-flavors.
The improved natural method adjusts for the two shortcomings of the traditional method:
1. During picking, only fully ripe dark red coffee cherries are selected. Before drying, the beans are first screened for defects at the processing station, making their size and ripeness appear more uniform.
2. They are then dried on raised wooden frames or entire drying sheds to avoid the beans touching the ground and picking up off-flavors. During drying, careful attention is required to let the coffee beans lose moisture evenly; every three to five days, workers manually remove moldy and defective beans. Therefore, by the time drying ends and the beans enter the depulping and mucilage removal stage, a batch of coffee cherries dried to a vivid dark red has already reached a grade with very few defects. After harvesting, coffee beans must immediately enter processing, otherwise they will begin to ferment and develop off-flavors. Processing methods are divided into two types, "natural" and "washed," and the two bring different flavors. Naturally processed beans have a complete natural body, gentle aroma, and more mucilage; washed processing has good body, high aroma, and lively acidity.
[Front Street Coffee Natural Sidama]: The beans are slightly smaller than Longberry and have a greenish-yellow color. On Sidama's natural drying beds, coffee is placed on hemp-net wooden racks, and workers take turns manually turning the coffee in the sun. Natural Sidama is usually exported mostly as Grade G4; washed Sidama, because its processing is more complete than natural, is mostly exported as Grade G2.
[Front Street Coffee Washed Sidama]: The green coffee beans are green with a slight grayish tint, coarse in some areas and small in others, with both soft and intense acidity, balanced body, and sweet and spicy notes. It is one of the garden coffees of the southern Ethiopian highlands. What sets it apart from ordinary African coffees is that Sidama has clear fruity acidity, a smooth mouthfeel, and delicate floral and herbal aromas.
Front Street Coffee Natural Sidama Lion King! 15 grams of beans, using 90° water, 30-second bloom, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
