Guji, as a rising star on Ethiopia's coffee map, has rapidly ascended to the ranks of core specialty coffee regions in recent years thanks to its outstanding flavor performance. From its early days under the Sidamo region to being independently classified as a new category by the ECX in 2015, Guji's rise has followed a trajectory similar to that of Yirgacheffe. Hambela, as Guji's most representative sub-region, produces the Flower Kui coffee beans that have become a favorite among domestic coffee enthusiasts thanks to their exceptional sun-dried G1 quality. In this article, Front Street Coffee will systematically examine this bean in its entirety—from the region's historical evolution, terroir conditions, and the background of the Hambela farm, to the evolution of Flower Kui lots and specific brewing parameters—guiding you to a deeper understanding of Guji coffee's quality characteristics and brewing essentials.

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Have you ever noticed a phenomenon: in earlier years, Flower Kui's origin was almost always labeled "Sidamo," but in recent years it has quietly switched to "Guji," and sometimes both names appear simultaneously. What exactly is the reason behind this?

Sidamo is located in southern Ethiopia and was once a coffee region of considerable size, encompassing 23 districts, over 50 cooperatives, and more than 200 coffee processing stations. Its coverage is extremely broad, spanning multiple administrative jurisdictions, and the terroir conditions and climate characteristics vary from one small producing area to another, thus endowing the coffee beans with rich and varied flavor expressions.

In the last century, Yirgacheffe was also originally classified under Sidamo and was uniformly labeled "large sidamo" for export. However, because Yirgacheffe early on won international attention for its outstanding flavor, it was the first to break away from Sidamo's classification, and with the support of the Ethiopian government, successfully registered the "Yirgacheffe®" flavor trademark globally in 2007.

A similar situation occurred with Guji. Around 2008, when the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) was first established, Guji coffee was still classified under "Sidama A" in auction categories. Thereafter, as more and more small producing areas under Guji ranked highly in international green bean competitions such as the COE thanks to their excellent flavors, Guji's reputation continued to rise, and the ECX finally made it an independent category in 2015.

Compared with other traditional producing regions, Guji is a fairly remote area in Ethiopia, with inconvenient transportation, high mountains, and dense forests, and it was long isolated from the outside world. The local residents initially made a living by herding, and later discovered abundant mineral deposits underground, after which the mining industry emerged. It was not until recent years, as the high-quality coffee produced in Guji was recognized by more and more international buyers, that the coffee industry was able to grow rapidly and gradually become a new economic pillar for the region.

Unlike Yirgacheffe's development path, Guji, as a latecomer producing region, started its coffee industry relatively late, but it possesses inherent advantages such as high altitude, mineral-rich soil, and ample available land, creating favorable conditions for building large-scale washing stations and sun-drying beds. In addition, local protection of primary forests is more complete, providing strong safeguards for water and soil conservation and for flavor uniqueness.

Opening the distribution map of Guji's coffee-producing areas, one can see several well-known sub-regions: Ana Sora, Hambela, Shakiso, Uraga, and Rogicha. Front Street's best-selling Flower Kui 8.0 is produced in Guji's Hambela and sun-dried at the Buku Abel processing station.

Unlike traditional producing regions such as Yirgacheffe, Hambela is actually a coffee farm belonging to the well-known local METAD Agricultural Development PLC. It is both an independently operated coffee farm and serves as the main processing station for the surrounding growing areas, uniformly processing coffee produced in the vicinity and selling it as independent lots. METAD is a native Ethiopian coffee export company founded by Aman Adinew in 2013, with coffee sources covering the Gedeo Zone and Gedeb District of the SNNPR as well as the Guji Zone and Hambela Estate of the Oromia Region.

Aman comes from a coffee family; his grandmother developed coffee farms in Ethiopia's Harrar and Sidamo regions in earlier years. Aman himself also served as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX). After leaving his government post, he resolved to modernize the local coffee industry, so he founded METAD and began cooperating with thousands of smallholder farmers in Yirgacheffe and Guji.

The Hambela farm has a total area of 200 hectares and is about 75 kilometers from Yirgacheffe, located in Ethiopia's finest coffee-growing belt. Its processing station has already reached a fairly professional level in terms of equipment, management, and scale. Add to that fertile volcanic soil, natural organic farming methods, and relatively mature post-processing techniques—these are the key factors that have made Hambela one of the hottest sub-regions in recent years.

In coffee shops, what we commonly call "Flower Kui" actually refers to a sun-dried coffee bean from Ethiopia's Sidamo-Hambela producing region, with the full English name "Ethiopia Guji Hambella Buku Abel." On the larger level, it is a champion bean from Ethiopia; on the smaller level, it is a specialty sun-dried lot processed and produced by the Buku Abel processing station in the Hambela producing region.

Before this bean acquired the name "Flower Kui," it had only one English name, "Hambella," translated into Chinese as "罕贝拉." In short, the "Flower Kui coffee" we speak of is a traditional sun-dried G1-grade coffee bean from the Hambela producing region, and the "Buku Abel" processing station is its more detailed traceability information, located in Dimtu town.

After "Flower Kui" became popular, market demand surged, and DW Company added 5 independent green coffee drying and processing stations in Hambella Wamena Wereda, all located within the core producing area of Dimtu town. In addition to the original Buku Abel, four other small villages—Buku Saysay, Haro Soresa, Tirtiro Goye, and Seke Bokosa—also joined the production of sun-dried coffee beans. It is reported that at this point DW Company's annual production of "Flower Kui" had reached tens of millions of tons.

Starting with the 2018 harvest season, Flower Kui (sun-dried G1 coffee beans) produced from the same origin and the same processing station showed some changes in flavor. Through cupping, Front Street found that although the 2018 and 2019 Flower Kui still retained flavor characteristics similar to the 2017 Flower Kui, they were inferior to the "first-generation Flower Kui" in mouthfeel dimensions such as body and aftertaste.

Therefore, in order to continue selling this sun-dried coffee from Hambela while distinguishing it from the original version, domestic green bean trading companies established an X.0 suffix naming rule for each subsequent year's lot based on 2017. For example, the 2018 lot was called "Flower Kui 2.0," the 2019 production was called "Flower Kui 3.0 and 3.1"... Last year's release was "Flower Kui 7.0," and so on, with this year's latest version being "Flower Kui 11." Through this suffix, consumers can easily determine which year's lot the Flower Kui they purchased belongs to.

Front Street 2026 New Harvest Season Flower Kui Coffee Beans

Country: Ethiopia Region: Sidamo · Guji Producing Region Altitude: 2250–2350 meters Variety: Local Heirloom Processing Method: Sun-dried

Flavor: Floral, jackfruit, dried fruit, apricot, juicy

Light-roasted coffee beans have a relatively hard texture, and Front Street uses high-temperature water of 92°C–93°C to bring out the floral and fruity notes in the coffee. As for grind size, Front Street recommends a medium-fine grind (78% passing rate on China standard No. 20 sieve). If the grind is too coarse, sufficient full-bodied substances cannot be extracted, and the brewed coffee will taste thin; if the grind is too fine, it is prone to over-extraction at high water temperatures, and the coffee may easily become bitter.

As for the brewing ratio, Front Street believes 1:15 to 1:16 is acceptable. If you prefer a richer mouthfeel, you can use 1:15; if you want to perceive the floral notes and sweetness more clearly, you can use 1:16 to let the flavors open up more.

Pour-over recommendations for Flower Kui coffee beans from the Sidamo producing region

Dripper: V60 Water temperature: 92–93°C Dose: 15g Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15 Grind size: Fine granulated sugar size (78% passing rate on No. 20 standard sieve)

Pouring technique: three-stage

Three-stage pouring: First, wet the coffee bed with twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds, and after it forms a dome, let it bloom for 30 seconds. Then, pour in a small stream in a circular motion from the inside outward until reaching 125g, then pause. Wait until the coffee bed drops to half the height of the dripper, then continue pouring the third stage with the same fine stream until reaching 225g, until all the coffee liquid has finished filtering. Remove the dripper; the total time is about 2 minutes.

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