What Is Sidamo Coffee and How Does It Taste?
Sidamo coffee comes from Sidama Province in southern Ethiopia, one of the country's eight main producing regions, and the natural method adds fruity aroma and fermented sweetness. The Ardi G1 beans here grow in the Guji area at an average altitude near 1,900 meters, farmed by 700 smallholder families and repeatedly scored highly by CoffeeReview.
Flavor runs to wild berries, mango, pineapple, golden kiwi and lemon, with elegant acidity, a mild, clean balance and a long finish. Sun drying coffee beans whole preserves that fruit character. Typica and local heirloom varieties grow in reddish brown soil with 1,400 to 1,800 mm of annual rainfall, and the lot is graded G1, the top ECX grade.
The Sidama region is one of the important representatives of Ethiopian specialty coffee, and the natural processing method adds rich fruity aromas and fermented sweetness. The Ardi G1 coffee beans introduced in this article come from the Guji area of Sidama Province, at an average altitude of about 1,900 meters, and are produced by 700 local smallholder families. They have received high scores from CoffeeReview multiple times. Their flavor presents layers of wild berries, mango, pineapple, golden kiwi, and lemon sandwich cookies, with elegant acidity and a long finish. Front Street Coffee recommends this bean as a typical sample for experiencing Ethiopian natural flavors. The following text will comprehensively organize the core information of this bean from aspects such as the producing region background, processing method, flavor description, and award records.
Ethiopia Natural Sidama Ardi G1 Cupping Score 95
Region: Michicha & Kelenso Moconissa town, Sidama Province
Variety: Typica & Heirloom (local native varieties)
Production: Ardi local smallholder coffee farmers
Altitude: average 1,900 meters
Grade: Natural (rated G1, the highest grade, by ECX)
Annual rainfall: 1,400–1,800mm
Soil: reddish brown
Flavor characteristics: wild berries, mango, pineapple, golden kiwi, lemon sandwich cookies, elegant acidity, smooth profile. Light fermented wine aroma, rich berry aromas, mild, clean and balanced, with a long finish and lively, changeable fruity sweetness. The ripe berry flavor appears even milder and richer.
Award record: First place in the natural group at the 2010 Eastern Africa Fine Coffees Association (EAFCA)
CoffeeReview June 2014 94 points!
April 2014 93 points!
April 2010 95 points!
Introduction: Ethiopian coffee mainly has eight major producing regions, namely Ekempti, Limu, Illubabor, Djimma, Harrar, Teppi/Bebeka, Sidamo, and Yirgacheffe. Ethiopian coffee is highly regarded in Taiwan, and people there are especially interested in and fond of the three relatively famous producing regions: Harrar, Sidamo, and Yirgacheffe. Sidama Province is located in southern Ethiopia, with Arsi Province to the north, extending east to connect with Bale Province, and Gamu Gofa administrative region to the west. The administrative jurisdiction of Sidama Province includes two very famous producing regions, Yirgacheffe and Kochere. The local industry is mainly agriculture, and the coffee-growing areas are located around the Great Rift Valley.
The Sidama producing region is located in southern Ethiopia. The local industry is mainly agriculture, and the coffee-growing areas are located around the Great Rift Valley. The largest town in Sidama Province is Hawassa, an important local coffee export distribution center. The coffee flavors of Sidama are very diverse because different soil compositions, regional microclimates, and countless native coffee varieties create obvious differences and characteristics in the coffee produced in each town and area. Ardi is located in Guji, southern Oromia, adjacent to Sidama and Gedeo. This batch comes from a small village near Michicha & Kelenso Moconissa town in the Guji producing area of Sidama Province. This Ardi cooperative has 700 smallholder coffee farmer family members under it. The name Ardi comes from the name of the fossilized remains of a female discovered in 1992 with a history of 4.4 million years. Ardi's processing is quite meticulous. After the ripe cherries are hand-picked, they are dried on raised African beds for 3 weeks. During the entire 3-week drying process, workers turn them once every two hours, and every day they constantly stir them by hand to ensure even drying, ensuring that the naturally processed ripe coffee cherry fruit is consistently dried and completed into the final product.
Its improved natural method, that is, improvements made to address two shortcomings of the traditional method: when picking beans, only fully ripe dark red coffee cherries are harvested. Before sun-drying, the beans are first screened at the processing station to remove defective beans, making the bean size and maturity look more uniform. Next, raised wooden frames or entire drying beds are used for sun-drying, which can avoid the risk of the beans absorbing off-flavors from being placed on the ground. During the sun-drying process, the beans must be carefully looked after so that the coffee beans can dry evenly and lose moisture; every three to five days, the coffee workers will manually screen out and remove bad, moldy beans. Therefore, by the time sun-drying is completed and the beans enter the process of removing the peel and mucilage, a scene of brilliant deep red coffee cherries has already dried into dark black high-grade parchment green beans.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
