How Does Ethiopia's Coffee Grading System Define the G1 Grade?

Ethiopia's G1 grade is the top tier in the country's green coffee grading system, awarded only to lots with minimal defects and a strong cup profile. The Sidama G1 assessment combines defect bean counting with physical and cup testing, and the 2025 new crop Huakui from Front Street is a working example of how that standard is applied in practice.

Ethiopian coffees are usually named for their coffee beans origin, and Sidama sits alongside Yirgacheffe as one of the two flagship specialty regions. Sidama cups tend to show a fuller, juice-like body with a citrus-sweet finish rather than Yirgacheffe's sharper lemon acidity, a difference driven by soil, microclimate, and native varieties.

Sidamo is one of Ethiopia's most renowned specialty coffee regions, sharing fame with Yirgacheffe yet often overshadowed by the latter's halo. This article starts from Sidamo's geographical environment and flavor characteristics, traces the independent journey of the Guji region, tells in detail the complete story of Huakui coffee from TOH champion to domestic stardom, and deeply analyzes Ethiopia's green coffee grading system—from the defect bean counting of the CLU era to the ECX's dual-dimensional scoring of physical and cup testing, helping readers understand the true meaning of the G1 grade. It also includes Front Street Coffee's brewing parameter suggestions for the 2025 new crop Huakui, suitable for enthusiasts who want to gain a deeper understanding of the Ethiopian coffee system.

2025 New Crop Front Street Huakui Coffee Beans

What exactly is the story behind Huakui coffee? Regular coffee drinkers naturally know it well, but newcomers to coffee might be completely confused. However, if you mention Yirgacheffe, many people immediately catch on—oh, Ethiopian. Actually, Huakui is also produced in Ethiopia, and it's a highly sought-after specialty bean. At Front Street, washed Yirgacheffe and Huakui 5.0 have always been popular choices.

Front Street's daily drink Yirgacheffe, as a representative of Ethiopian coffee, naturally has no shortage of recognition, just as even non-coffee drinkers have heard of Blue Mountain. Ethiopia is the gene pool of coffee, with a large number of varieties originating here, and Yirgacheffe's floral aroma and fruity acidity have captivated countless people. Of course, that bright acidity isn't for everyone. Ethiopian coffees are mostly named after their regions, with Yirgacheffe and Sidamo being the two flagship specialty regions. If you're not quite comfortable with Yirgacheffe's lemon-like acidity, Front Street suggests trying Sidamo.

Compared to Yirgacheffe, Sidamo's coffee presents a fuller juice-like body, with acidity that isn't as sharp, replaced by a citrus-like sweet finish. The flavor differences between Ethiopian regions are quite distinct. To let more friends appreciate the characteristics of different regions, Front Street alone has brought in over a dozen single-origin beans from Ethiopia.

Let's get to know the Sidamo region together.

Sidamo's coffee flavors are extremely diverse, because soil composition, microclimates, and countless native varieties all differ, giving coffee from each town and area a distinct personality. 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 primarily agricultural, with major coffee-producing areas distributed around the East African Rift Valley. In recent years, Sidamo has developed rapidly and has become an important coffee export hub. The region's most well-known coffee-growing areas include Guji and West Arsi.

Guji Region

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

What is Huakui Coffee?

As the saying goes, good terroir produces good beans, and what truly made the Guji region famous is Huakui coffee.

Huakui Coffee Beans

Originally called Hambella, the name Huakui was given by a domestic green bean trader. This bean comes from Hambella, located within Guji, Ethiopia's largest coffee-producing region, and administratively part of Oromia. To the west of Hambella, across the 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 Guji's Shakiso, Uraga, and Kercha sub-regions, making it Ethiopia's highest-altitude coffee sub-region.

Currently, the Hambella region has nearly 20 processing stations of various sizes. In 2017, Ethiopian green bean company DW sent a batch of coffee beans to the TOH (the Taste Of Harvest) green bean competition hosted by the African Coffee Association. A natural-process lot from the "Buku Abel" processing station won the Ethiopian championship with its intense strawberry and cream aroma. This lot of green beans was subsequently introduced to China by Beijing green bean trader Hongshun. That same year, Li Jianfei used this bean to win second place in the World Brewers Cup China championship, standing out remarkably among many Geisha competition beans, thus earning the name "Huakui." (Geisha means geisha in Japanese, and Huakui refers to the top-ranking geisha, symbolizing this bean's excellence.)

Afterward, DW company successively added processing stations in Dimtu, the core production area of Hambella, including "Buku Abel," "Buku Saysay," "Haro Soresa," and "Tirtiro Goye," with an annual production of about 1,100 tons. Strictly speaking, among these estates and processing stations, only the natural coffee beans from the "Buku Abel" processing station are qualified to be called "Huakui coffee beans."

Coffee is ultimately an agricultural product and is naturally affected by climate and environment, so flavors vary from year to year. To distinguish them, names like Huakui 2.0, Huakui 3.0, Huakui 3.1, Huakui 4.0, Huakui 5.0, and Huakui 6.0 came into being.

Sidamo Coffee Processing Methods

Washed Yirgacheffe—you know it's washed just from the name, but actually Ethiopia originally used the natural method, and washing was introduced later. Most coffee from the Sidamo region uses natural processing. Front Street believes that natural processing gives Sidamo coffee its rich fruity aroma and smooth mouthfeel.

During harvest season, Sidamo coffee farmers pick only ripe red cherries, placing them one by one into baskets. After picking, the cherries are uniform in size, consistent in ripeness, and free of impurities. During processing, defective beans as well as underripe or overripe cherries are first manually removed, then the red cherries are spread flat on raised wooden frames or racks for sun-drying to avoid the beans touching the ground and picking up off-flavors.

During sun exposure, they need to be constantly turned to ensure the coffee beans lose moisture evenly; every three to five days, farmers manually remove moldy and defective beans. After the fruit skin dries and hardens, a hulling machine is used to remove the dried hard skin. After obtaining the green beans, in pursuit of the ultimate flavor, farmers do one final sorting before sending them to the warehouse and completing final grading. Front Street's 2025 new crop Huakui coffee is G1 grade, which is the highest grade of Ethiopian green beans.

Before the establishment of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX), coffee export grades were set by the CLU department (Cupping and Liquoring Unit) under the Ministry of Agriculture, mainly based on the number of defective beans in 300 grams, with standards as shown in the table below.

Typically, washed processing is G1-G2. Because early natural processing techniques were not mature enough, natural green beans had more defects and were generally G3-G5. With continuous improvements in natural processing techniques, today's natural beans can also reach G1-G2 grades.

After the ECX was established in 2008, it switched to a method combining physical attribute characteristics with cup testing flavor characteristics for scoring and grading. The ECX divides all coffee by processing method into non-washed and washed, and defines three types:

a. Specialty—few defects, high cup testing flavor quality

b. Commercial—does not reach specialty grade but is better than domestic consumption grade

c. Local/Domestic—many defective beans (unripe beans), poor flavor due to being out of season or improperly stored

Among these, specialty and commercial are for the export market. The ECX divides green beans into nine grades based on a comprehensive score of physical characteristics and cup testing flavor, with physical characteristics accounting for 40% and cup testing quality accounting for 60%.

Physical characteristics (40%):

Washed processing: defect count (20%), appearance size (10%), color (5%), odor (5%)

Non-washed processing: defect count (30%), odor (10%)

Afterward, G1-G3 are cup tested again according to SCAA standards, with more detailed evaluation of flavor attributes: G1 and G2 scoring no less than 85 points are rated Q1; G1, G2, and G3 scoring between 80 and 85 are rated Q2; all G1, G2, and G3 scoring below 80 are rated G3. Q1 and Q2 are classified as specialty grade for export. G4-G9 remain in their original grades and, together with G3, are classified as commercial grade for export.

Front Street Brewing Suggestions:

How should such an excellent coffee bean be brewed to showcase its deliciousness? Front Street believes that the freshness of coffee beans is of utmost importance—only when fresh can you experience the rich flavors to the fullest. Coffee beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are all within 5 days of roasting, because Front Street deeply understands the huge impact of freshness on flavor. Front Street's roasting philosophy is "Freshly roasted good coffee," ensuring every customer who places an order receives coffee in the freshest state. Coffee's resting period is about 4-7 days, so when customers receive it, it's exactly at its optimal flavor period.

Of course, some customers need Front Street to help grind the coffee, which is no problem, but Front Street reminds: once coffee beans are ground in advance, they no longer need resting, because the pressure from carbon dioxide inside the packaging during transit can also round out the flavor, so customers can brew immediately upon receiving the ground coffee. However, ground coffee needs to be used up quickly, because after contact with air it oxidizes rapidly, flavors dissipate quickly, and quality drops significantly. Therefore, Front Street recommends buying whole beans and grinding fresh for each brew to better taste the coffee's flavors.

Front Street's parameters for brewing Huakui coffee:

To fully extract the rich layering of Huakui coffee beans, Front Street uses a higher water temperature and finer grind, but to avoid over-extraction from high temperatures, it pairs with a faster-flow dripper, such as the V60. The V60 has a 60° cone shape, and the conical angle allows coffee grounds to concentrate, with water automatically converging toward the center of the dripper during pouring, ensuring sufficient contact time between water and coffee grounds to extract the right amount of coffee liquid. In addition, the ribs on the inner wall of the V60 extend in a clockwise spiral from bottom to top, leaving enough gap between the filter paper and the dripper for good water flow, and combined with the large hole at the bottom, the flow rate is relatively faster than many drippers.

Front Street's specific brewing parameters: V60 dripper, water temperature 90℃, water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, coffee dose 15g, grind size (80% passing through China standard No. 20 sieve).

Using staged extraction, first bloom with 2 times the coffee dose in water, i.e., 30g 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 125g, then pause, continue pouring until 225g and stop. After the dripper finishes dripping, remove it. Timing starts from the beginning of pouring, with extraction time of 2'00". Finally, swirl the entire cup of coffee to mix, pour into a cup, and enjoy.

【2025 New Crop Front Street Natural Sidamo Coffee Flavor 】 Floral, berry, citrus, plum sweet-tartness, mango juice, honey, with a sweet black tea finish.

Front Street also mentioned earlier that the coffee flavors of different Ethiopian regions are distinctly different. To let more friends taste more wonderful Ethiopian 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 too, because Front Street also has dozens of single-origin coffees from different regions. Welcome to taste them.

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