How Do Yirgacheffe Coffee Farms Shape Red Honey and Natural Lots?

The Aricha processing plant in Ethiopia's Yirgacheffe region was originally named Idido and belonged to the trader Abdullah Bagersh. It later changed hands and took the local place name Aricha, while its processing standards carried over. Smallholder coffee farms in the Misty Valley area average about 0.7 hectares each, a backyard model known as Garden Coffee where coffee trees grow alongside bananas and staple crops.

Yirgacheffe relied on natural processing for years, but consistency varied, so the washed method arrived from Central and South America in 1959. The YCFCU cooperative union organizes smallholders across the region, which helps standardize lot separation. Red Honey Red Cherry and Natural Aricha show how drying and fermentation choices lead to different cup profiles from the same micro-region.

The Aricha processing plant in Ethiopia's Yirgacheffe region, originally named Idido, was once owned by the well-known coffee trader Abdullah Bagersh. Although it later changed hands and was renamed, its processing standards and quality have continued to this day. This article will trace the connection between Idido and Aricha, introduce the operating model of the Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers' Cooperative Union (YCFCU), and separately present Front Street Coffee's roasting recommendations and flavor descriptions for two beans: Yirgacheffe Red Honey Red Cherry and Natural Aricha, giving you a deeper understanding of the processing techniques and cup performance of the Misty Valley micro-region.

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Ethiopia's coffee cultivation model is completely different from that of ordinary estates. Local farmers usually open up small plots of land in their own backyards to grow coffee trees, while also planting bananas and other staple crops. During harvest season, coffee cherries can be sold for cash, while other crops are kept for the family's own consumption. According to statistics, each farming household in the Yirgacheffe area has an average coffee planting area of only about 0.7 hectares. This form of cultivation is called Garden Coffee. The Yirgacheffe Aricha processing plant was originally named Idido and was initially owned by Abdullah Bagersh. Later, the processing plant changed hands, and its name was also changed to the local place name Aricha. Despite the change in ownership, Front Street Coffee still believes that Yirgacheffe Aricha from Misty Valley is one of the finest processing plants in the minds of many roasters. Front Street Coffee continues to explore coffee beans from around the world, and through comparative tasting across different producing regions, it gains a deeper understanding of the flavor characteristics of each region.

The Yirgacheffe producing region mainly used the natural method to process coffee beans in its early years, but traditional natural processing performed poorly in terms of quality consistency. In 1959, in order to improve coffee quality, the region introduced the washed processing method from Central and South America. The moisture content of washed beans is usually controlled at around 16%, the beans have a neat appearance, relatively few off-flavors, a clean and transparent mouthfeel, and bright fruit acidity. After 1970, washed Yirgacheffe beans became popular worldwide thanks to their jasmine floral aroma and citrus notes, becoming the benchmark for African specialty coffee.

Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers' Cooperative Union

The Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers' Cooperative Union (YCFCU) covers 26 cooperatives in the Gedeo Zone of southern Ethiopia, distributed across towns such as Yirgacheffe, Gedeb, Wenago, and Kochere. In the process of smallholder farmers moving from poverty to self-sufficiency in Ethiopia, YCFCU has played a crucial role.

Ethiopian coffee smallholders usually cultivate no more than 1 hectare, and their green bean harvest is extremely limited. Coffee income alone is difficult to sustain a whole family, so they also need to grow other cash crops to supplement household income. Before the establishment of YCFCU, the green beans harvested by smallholders could only be traded through ECX. ECX operates by mixing all products together, grading them, and then selling them internationally at market prices. Although smallholders could obtain slightly better profits than when they were severely exploited in the past, they could not receive the deserved premium for excellent products. Over time, this inevitably led to a decline in green bean quality. In addition, the mixed grading system also made it impossible for overseas buyers to trace the origin history and terroir information of Yirgacheffe green beans. As a result, organizations such as YCFCU, with the aim of stabilizing coffee price fluctuations and improving Yirgacheffe coffee quality and smallholder profits, emerged.

YCFCU cooperatives are coffee exporters recognized by the Ethiopian government. Smallholders in the Gedeo Zone are free to decide whether to join, and the entire system is jointly maintained by grassroots farmers. On the one hand, farmers are thus protected from unfair exploitation by private processing plants; on the other hand, it also provides international buyers with a channel to connect directly with village cooperatives.

Front Street Coffee points out that in economically underdeveloped areas, it is difficult for smallholders to have extra funds to buy chemical fertilizers, so natural and organic cultivation methods are generally adopted locally. Ethiopia has vast primeval forests, and 90% of coffee-growing areas can be found within forests. The use of natural shade and intercropping helps the development of Yirgacheffe coffee flavor and achieves excellent agricultural results and sustainable operation.

The establishment of YCFCU cooperatives has made the complete "from origin to cup" traceability that international buyers eagerly awaited become a reality, and has also allowed cooperative members to gradually improve education and living standards in their villages through fair profits.

Since its establishment in 2002, YCFCU has consistently worked toward a win-win situation for quality, the market, and farmers. It not only takes care of local farmers economically, but has also completed multiple regional construction projects, including bridges, schools, and power systems, while providing assistance in related knowledge and cultivation techniques to improve green bean quality. So far, 26 farmer cooperatives have joined the cooperation, with a total of about 300,000 smallholder farmers under them. Some smallholders in the Yirga region are direct partners of YCFCU. The cooperative directly guides smallholders in harvesting ripe cherries and assists with post-processing. A single smallholder's planting area is very small, producing only a few hundred or even a few dozen jute bags of extremely tiny lots each year. Almaz Bekele is one of its partner smallholders. Under YCFCU's guidance and assistance, the Almaz Bekele product cupped this year showed quite mature performance. Compared with well-known cooperatives, its flavor is no less impressive, and it is highly recommended.

Idido Cooperative

The Idido Cooperative has more than one thousand members and is one of the members of YCFCU. Most smallholders use less than two hectares of farmland to grow coffee. The cooperative is located in a high-altitude valley in Yirgacheffe town, with annual rainfall of about 1,400 to 1,800 millimeters. The altitude at which local smallholders grow coffee is about 2,000 meters. Thanks to the cool mountain air, the coffee can mature slowly under good soil conditions and in a healthy ecosystem. The smallholders then harvest fully ripe red cherries from December to February of the following year. Like other cooperatives, Idido has excellent conditions for producing top-quality coffee:

1. High altitude 2. Excellent processing techniques 3. Nutrient-rich soil 4. Ethiopian heirloom varieties.

Aricha Processing Plant

The Aricha processing site is located in Ethiopia's most famous micro-region, Misty Valley, at an altitude of about 1,900 to 2,000 meters. Its original name was the Idido processing plant.

In 2006, Abdullah Bagersh, a well-known local coffee trader in Yirgacheffe, improved and refined the processing procedure in response to the shortcomings of the traditional natural method. After the coffee cherries were harvested, they were placed on raised beds to dry for 48 hours, with workers constantly turning the coffee beans throughout the process, and then defective beans were removed by hand. Only then did he successfully create Yirgacheffe natural G1-grade coffee beans, as well as the highest-grade washed G1. Coffee produced by Bagersh would be marked with the Idido Misty Valley (IMV) logo, and the jute bags would also be printed with the conspicuous word Bagersh, which could almost be regarded as a guarantee of top-quality Ethiopian coffee. Famous representative works include the extremely small lots produced in cooperation with America's Ninety Plus—Aricha and Beloya—and even the regular washed and natural Yirgacheffe series also received excellent reviews.

Although the Aricha/Idido washed processing plant is no longer owned by Abdullah Bagersh today, according to a visit by Sweet Maria's, because most local employees were retained, Bagersh's processing procedures and standards have continued to a considerable extent, allowing quality to be maintained.

Below, Front Street brewed Front Street Yirgacheffe Red Honey Idido processing plant Red Cherry and Front Street Yirgacheffe Natural Aricha separately to taste their flavors.

Front Street Yirgacheffe Red Honey Red Cherry

Region: Yirgacheffe Idido

Altitude: 2000-2200m

Processing method: Red honey

Variety: Heirloom

Grade: G1

Roasting recommendation

Roaster: Yangjia 800N (batch size 550g)

Charge at a drum temperature of 180°C, heat 130, airflow 3; turning point at 1'32", when the drum temperature is 146°C open the airflow to 4, heat unchanged; when the drum temperature is 149°C the bean surface turns yellow, the grassy smell completely disappears, and it enters the dehydration stage. When the drum temperature reaches 166°C, adjust the heat to 110, airflow unchanged.

At 7'43", ugly wrinkles and dark patches appear on the bean surface, and the toast smell clearly turns into coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this time, listen carefully for the sound of the first crack point. At 8'29" first crack begins, open the airflow to 5, develop for 1'28" after first crack, and drop at 190°C.

Flavor: It smells of ginger flower, with citrus, lemon, and fruit candy on the palate, cedar aroma in the middle, honey sweetness, oolong tea notes in the finish, and a lasting creamy aftertaste.

Front Street Yirgacheffe Aricha

Region: Yirgacheffe Adorsi processing plant

Altitude: 1900-2000m

Processing method: Natural

Variety: Heirloom

Grade: G1

Roasting recommendation

Roaster Yangjia 800N (batch size 300g)

Charge at a drum temperature of 165°C, heat 120, airflow 3; turning point at 1'36", when the drum temperature is 148°C open the airflow to 4, heat unchanged; when the drum temperature is 166°C the bean surface turns yellow, the grassy smell completely disappears, and it enters the dehydration stage, heat unchanged, airflow 5.

At 7'37", ugly wrinkles and dark patches appear on the bean surface, and the toast smell clearly turns into coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this time, listen carefully for the sound of the first crack point. At 8'38" first crack begins, airflow unchanged, develop for 1'45" after first crack, and drop at 195°C.

Flavor: It smells of ripe fruit, with obvious fermented aroma on the palate, green grapes, and as it cools slightly, lemon acidity, creamy smoothness, and a juicy ripe grape note in the finish.

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