What Makes Sidamo Hambela Guji Coffee Taste Different?

Hambela Guji coffee comes from the Guji zone within Ethiopia's Sidamo region and is a natural-process bean, a coffee process that dries whole cherries in the sun. It rose to attention after winning the 2017 TOH championship. Expect berry and stone-fruit sweetness with a fuller, juice-like body than the sharper lemon acidity typical of nearby Yirgacheffe.

Ethiopian coffees are usually named after their growing regions, and those regional names for coffee beans are a useful guide: Sidamo cups rounder and sweeter, Yirgacheffe brighter and more floral. For brewing, use a medium-fine grind with water around 90 to 92°C, a 1:15 ratio, and a steady pour to keep the fruit notes clear.

Huakui coffee beans rose to fame due to winning the 2017 TOH championship. They come from Guji Hambella in the Sidamo region of Ethiopia and are a highly recognizable natural-process specialty coffee. This article will start with the differences between Sidamo and Yirgacheffe, outline the terroir conditions of the Guji region, trace the origin of the name Huakui, introduce the natural processing method, and include Front Street's complete brewing recipe and flavor description to help coffee lovers fully understand this bean's origin background and brewing key points.

2025 New Harvest Season Front Street Huakui Coffee Beans

What exactly is the story behind Huakui coffee? People who drink coffee regularly are certainly familiar with it, but if you are just getting into specialty coffee, you might be completely confused. However, when Yirgacheffe is mentioned, many people immediately recognize it—that's a bean from Ethiopia. In fact, Huakui also comes from Ethiopia and is quite sought after in the specialty coffee circle. At Front Street, washed Yirgacheffe and Huakui 5.0 have always been highly popular choices.

As a representative of Ethiopian coffee, Yirgacheffe's fame is already deeply rooted, just like how even people who don't drink coffee have heard of Blue Mountain. Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, and a large number of varieties spread from here. Yirgacheffe's interwoven floral and fruity acidity leaves many people longing for it. But not everyone loves this bright acidity. Ethiopian coffees are mostly named after their regions, and Yirgacheffe and Sidamo are the country's two renowned specialty regions. If you are not quite comfortable with Yirgacheffe's lemon-like acidity, Front Street suggests trying Sidamo.

Compared to Yirgacheffe, coffees from the Sidamo region have a fuller juice-like body, with less sharp acidity and instead a citrus-like sweet finish. The flavor differences between Ethiopia's various regions are quite pronounced. In order to let more friends experience the characteristics of different regions, Front Street has brought in over a dozen single-origin beans from Ethiopia alone.

Next, let's take a closer look at the Sidamo region.

Sidamo's coffee flavors are extremely diverse. Different soil compositions, regional microclimates, and countless native varieties give coffees from each town their own distinct character. The Sidamo region is located in southern Ethiopia, extending east to the Arsi and Bale administrative zones and west to the Gamogofa administrative zone, with coffee cultivation at altitudes between 1,400 and 2,000 meters. The local economy is mainly agricultural, and coffee-growing areas are primarily distributed around the East African Rift Valley. In recent years, Sidamo has developed strongly and has become an important coffee export hub. The region's most famous coffee-growing areas include Guji and West Arsi.

Guji Region

Guji originally belonged to the Sidamo region but was separated by the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) in 2010 to become an independent region. It is located southeast of Yirgacheffe, with complex terrain featuring interlacing mountains, valleys, and plains. The soil in this area is fertile black soil (Vertisol), nearly two meters deep, with an average altitude exceeding 1,800 meters. The unique geographical conditions bring significant temperature differences between day and night, providing an ideal terroir foundation for producing high-quality specialty coffee.

What is Huakui Coffee?

People often say that a good climate environment can nurture good coffee, and what truly made the Guji region widely known is Huakui coffee.

Huakui coffee beans were originally called Hambella. The name Huakui was given by a domestic green bean trader. This bean comes from Hambella, located in Guji, Ethiopia's largest coffee-producing region, administratively belonging to the Oromia State. To the west of Hambella, across high mountains, lies Yirgacheffe's Kochere, with a 3,200-meter-high, approximately 30-kilometer-wide plateau between the two regions. To the southeast and north, it borders the Guji sub-regions of Shakiso, Uraga, and Kercha respectively, making it Ethiopia's highest-altitude coffee sub-region.

Currently, the Hambella region has nearly 20 processing plants of various sizes. In 2017, Ethiopian green bean company DW sent coffee beans to the TOH (the Taste Of Harvest) green bean competition organized by the African Coffee Association. A natural-process lot from the "Buku Abel" processing plant won the TOH Ethiopia championship with its rich strawberry and cream aromas. This lot of green beans was subsequently introduced to 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 Championship. Among a field of Geisha competition beans, this Ethiopian bean stood out remarkably, and was thus given the name "Huakui." (Geisha means geiko in Japanese, and Huakui refers to the top-ranking geiko, highlighting this bean's excellence.)

Afterward, DW established additional processing plants in Dimtu, the core production area of Hambella, named "Buku Abel," "Buku Saysay," "Haro Soresa," and "Tirtiro Goye," with an annual coffee output of approximately 1,100 tons. Strictly speaking, among these estates and processing plants, only the natural-process coffee beans produced by the "Buku Abel" processing plant are qualified to be called "Huakui coffee beans."

Coffee is ultimately an agricultural product and is naturally affected by climate and environment, so its flavor changes every year. To distinguish between them, names like Huakui 2.0, Huakui 3.0, Huakui 3.1, Huakui 4.0, Huakui 5.0, and Huakui 6.0 came about.

Sidamo Coffee Processing Methods

Yirgacheffe is often preceded by the word "washed," but Ethiopia originally used the natural processing method; washing was introduced later. Most coffees from the Sidamo region use natural processing. Front Street believes it is precisely the natural process that gives the coffee beans from this region their rich fruity aroma and smooth mouthfeel.

When the coffee harvest season arrives, Sidamo coffee farmers pick only ripe red cherries, placing them one by one into baskets. After picking, the cherries are uniform in size, similar in ripeness, and free of impurities. During processing, defective beans as well as underripe or overripe cherries are first removed by hand. Then the red cherries are spread flat on raised wooden frames or entire drying racks for sun-drying, which prevents the beans from touching the ground and absorbing off-flavors.

During sun-drying, they need to be constantly turned to ensure the coffee beans lose moisture evenly; every three to five days, farmers manually remove moldy or defective beans. Once the fruit skin dries and hardens, a hulling machine is used to remove the dried hard skin. After obtaining the green beans, farmers perform one more round of sorting to pursue the ideal flavor.

Front Street Brewing Suggestions:

How should such good coffee beans be brewed to showcase their deliciousness? Front Street believes that the freshness of the coffee beans is a key factor. Only when the beans are fresh enough can you experience the rich flavors to the fullest extent. Coffee beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are all within 5 days of roasting, because Front Street deeply understands how much freshness affects flavor. Front Street's roasting philosophy is "freshly roasted good coffee," so that every customer who places an order receives the freshest beans possible. The coffee resting period is about 4 to 7 days, so when customers receive them, they are just at their peak flavor stage.

Of course, some customers need Front Street to grind the coffee for them, which is completely fine, but Front Street would like to remind you: once coffee beans are ground in advance, there is no need to rest them anymore, because the pressure from carbon dioxide inside the packaging during transport can also mellow the flavor, so after receiving ground coffee you can brew a cup directly. However, ground coffee should be used up as soon as possible, because after contact with air it oxidizes quickly, flavors dissipate quickly, and quality will decline. Therefore, Front Street recommends buying whole beans and grinding fresh for each brew to better savor the coffee.

Front Street's Parameters for Brewing Huakui Coffee:

In order to fully extract the rich layers of Huakui coffee beans, Front Street uses a higher water temperature and a finer grind size. At the same time, to avoid over-extraction caused by high temperature, a faster-flow dripper is chosen, such as the V60. The V60 dripper has a 60° cone shape, and this angle allows the coffee grounds to concentrate, so when pouring, the water automatically converges toward the center of the dripper, ensuring sufficient contact time between water and coffee grounds, thereby extracting an appropriate cup of coffee. In addition, the ribs on the inner side of the V60 are arranged in a clockwise spiral, extending from the bottom all the way to the top, leaving ample space between the filter paper and the dripper, resulting in good water flow. Combined with the large hole at the bottom, the flow rate is faster than many other drippers.

The specific brewing parameters Front Street uses are: V60 dripper, water temperature 90°C, water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, coffee dose 15g, grind size with an 80% pass rate through the China No. 20 standard sieve.

A staged extraction is used. First, bloom with twice the amount of water as the coffee dose, that is, 30 grams of water for 30 seconds. The purpose of blooming is to let the coffee grounds release internal carbon dioxide, making subsequent extraction more stable. Pour in a small stream in circles until reaching 125 grams, then pause; continue pouring until 225 grams, then stop. After the water in the dripper has dripped through, remove the dripper. Timing starts from the beginning of pouring, and the extraction time is 2 minutes 00 seconds. Finally, swirl the entire cup of coffee to mix it evenly, pour into a cup, and enjoy.

[2025 New Harvest Season Front Street Natural Sidamo Coffee Flavor] Floral, berry, citrus, and plum sweet-tartness, mango juice, honey, with a sweet black tea finish.

As Front Street said, the coffee flavors of Ethiopia's various regions differ noticeably. In order to let more friends taste more of Ethiopia's outstanding flavors, Front Street has brought in over a dozen single-origin coffee beans from Ethiopia alone. Of course, if you want to try flavors from other producing countries, Front Street can satisfy you as well, because Front Street also has dozens of single-origin coffees from different regions. You are welcome to come and taste them.

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