How Did Huakui Geisha Coffee Beans Rise to Fame?

Huakui is a natural-process Ethiopian coffee from the Buku Abel processing station in the Guji region. It won the natural category at the 2017 Taste of Harvest competition with intense berry aroma and a creamy mouthfeel, then gained wider attention after a competitor used it at the World Coffee Brewing Championship. Now in its eighth year, the series continues with Front Street Huakui 8.0.

The beans trace back to the Hambella sub-region under Guji, and the natural coffee processing method helps explain the pronounced fruit and floral notes Ethiopia is known for. Since 2018, each harvest has been released as a numbered batch, so Huakui 8.0 reflects the eighth yearly release and the flavor shifts that come with each season.

Ethiopia is widely recognized as the birthplace of coffee and is also Africa's largest coffee-producing country, known for its coffees with rich fruity notes and floral aromas. Among the many Ethiopian beans offered by FrontStreet Coffee, Huakui is undoubtedly the most eye-catching one, and it has now been updated to Front Street Huakui 8.0. What exactly makes this bean so popular? The story begins with a harvest-season flavor competition in 2017. That year, DW Coffee Company submitted a natural-process bean from the Buku Abel processing station, and with its intense berry aroma and creamy mouthfeel, it won the championship in the natural category. After that, it was named "Huakui" by a domestic trader, and it became even more famous after a competitor used it in the China region of the World Coffee Brewing Championship to defeat many contestants using Geisha beans. This article will sort out Huakui's origin background, the process by which it became famous, and the reason for naming each year's batch with "X.0" starting in 2018, and will also introduce the flavor performance of this year's Front Street Huakui 8.0.

Ethiopia is widely considered the birthplace of coffee, with a very long history of coffee cultivation, and it is also Africa's largest coffee-producing country. The coffee produced there often has distinct fruity notes and floral aromas, which has earned it the favor of a large number of coffee lovers.

At FrontStreet Coffee, you can find several Ethiopian coffee beans produced by Front Street, among which the most famous is undoubtedly Huakui. It has now advanced to Front Street Huakui 8.0, in other words, the Huakui series has reached its eighth year. So what exactly makes it so popular?

Huakui's rise to fame began in 2017. That year, Ethiopia was holding the Taste of Harvest (TOH) competition organized by the African Fine Coffees Association (AFCA). When DW Coffee Company registered for the competition, it submitted a natural-process coffee bean produced at its Buku Abel processing station, and at that time the name used was "Hambella." With its robust berry aroma and creamy mouthfeel, this bean won first place in the natural category that year.

According to traceability information from that time, this bean came from Ethiopia's famous Guji region, specifically from the Hambella sub-region under Guji, and was processed by the Buku Abel processing station, so the name of the sub-region was directly used at the time.

It was called "Huakui" because in the same year this champion bean was spotted by a green bean trader in Beijing, and when it was introduced to the domestic market it was named "Huakui," meaning "leader of a hundred flowers." Not only that, a competitor also took a liking to this bean and brought it to compete in the World Coffee Brewing Championship (China region). In the end, although this competitor only won second place, they defeated a group of competitors using Geisha beans, thereby gaining public recognition; combined with its affordable price and outstanding cost performance, Huakui became an instant hit.

After Huakui became famous, in order to meet market demand, DW Company began successively adding five coffee processing stations in Dimtu town in the core production area of Hambella, while also purchasing coffee beans produced by surrounding villages to make "Huakui" coffee beans. It is said that at this stage, the amount of Huakui coffee beans produced by DW Company each year had already reached as much as tens of millions of tons.

However, coffee is ultimately a crop, and its quality is affected by factors such as that year's climate, rainfall, and fertilization; in the processing stage, subtle differences in temperature, humidity, and sun-drying conditions can likewise influence the final flavor direction. So starting in 2018, even if DW Company planted and harvested in the same area and processed at the same facility, the flavor of the finished product would still differ from that of the 2017 champion Huakui.

For this reason, in order to distinguish it from the original version, domestic green coffee traders began naming each year's batch as "Huakui X.0": the batch launched in 2018 was called "Huakui 2.0," the 2019 batch was called "Huakui 3.0," and this continued all the way to this year's 2024 batch, which is "Huakui 8.0."

After brewing this year's Front Street Huakui 8.0, you can taste tropical fruit flavors such as dried mango, citrus, and jackfruit, with abundant juiciness, a rounded mouthfeel, and a finish with black-tea-like sweetness and a very rich layering.

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