The Yirgacheffe region has always been known for its bright floral and fruity notes, and Aricha is one of its most notable representatives. This natural-process bean from the Adorsi processing station won the 2019 Africa TOH Natural category championship, with a cupping score as high as 91 points. Front Street Coffee uses a medium-light roast, striving to present its fermented winey aroma, ripe fruit sweetness, and creamy smooth finish. This article will walk you through Aricha's origin background, its TOH competition history, and share Front Street's roasting curve and V60 three-pour brewing parameters, helping you recreate this "fruit bomb's" captivating flavors at home.

The bean we're discussing today is Aricha from the Yirgacheffe region, a champion-winning coffee and one that Front Street Coffee is quite fond of. The reason isn't the "champion" title itself, but rather that its flavors are truly stunning. Aricha is actually the name of the processing station, and this bean took first place in the 2019 Africa TOH Natural category. Front Street uses a light roast to preserve as much floral and fruity aroma as possible. After repeated cupping, it reveals a gentle fermented winey aroma, ripe fruit sweetness, juice-like body, and a finish that turns creamy and smooth—truly deserving of the champion title.

Yirgacheffe is originally a small town in Ethiopia. The region sits at an altitude of about 1,700 to 2,200 meters, with relatively low temperatures, causing coffee cherries to grow more slowly and thus have more time to accumulate nutrients and flavor compounds. Because the coffee produced here has such distinctive flavors and outstanding quality, Ethiopian coffee farmers take pride in their beans having Yirgacheffe-like characteristics.

Not far east of Yirgacheffe, there is a village called Aricha kebele, and Aricha is about 8 kilometers from the center of Yirgacheffe town. Kebele is the smallest administrative unit in Ethiopia, home to roughly 500 households (approximately 3,500 to 4,000 people). Most of the local coffee comes from wild forest trees, making the coffee varieties in this area exceptionally diverse—a single batch may contain 2 to 30 varieties. And because the cherries are harvested from native forest land above 1,850 meters, there's no estate name to use, so it can only be called by the harvest region "Aricha." Ethiopian coffee has so many varieties that they are difficult to identify and classify one by one, so the local government, for conservation purposes, collectively calls them "Heirloom native species."

TOH stands for Taste Of Harvest, initiated by the African Fine Coffees Association (AFCA), similar in nature to the COE Cup of Excellence. There are 8 participating countries: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. The competition is held annually during the African Fine Coffee Conference and Exhibition, selecting the highest-quality green beans from various producing regions, which are then cupped and scored by domestic and international judges according to Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) standards.

The Aricha coffee beans produced by the Adorsi processing station won the 2019 TOH Natural category championship with a score of 91 points. The Adorsi processing station belongs to Testi Coffee, an coffee export company run by the Yonis family and founded in 2009 by Faysel A. Yonis. Front Street believes that the greatest highlight of Ethiopian coffee lies in its fruity acidity and floral aroma. Since it's called a "fruit bomb," the roast level naturally shouldn't be too dark, so Front Street chooses a medium-light roast to highlight the fruity notes.

Charge temperature 165°C, gas setting 120, damper 3; turning point at 1'36", when bean temperature reaches 148°C open the damper to 4, keeping gas unchanged; at 166°C the bean surface turns yellow, the grassy smell completely dissipates, entering the dehydration phase, gas remains the same, damper adjusted to 5; at 7'37" the bean surface shows ugly wrinkling and dark patches, the toast smell clearly transitions to coffee aroma, which can be regarded as the prelude to first crack—at this point listen carefully for the sound of first crack; at 8'38" first crack begins, damper stays unchanged, develop for 1'45" after first crack, drop at 195°C.

Agtron bean color value 66.2 (below image), Agtron pink value 78.9 (above image), Roast Delta value 12.7.

Front Street cupped the 2019 crop Aricha coffee beans, and its rich mouthfeel makes it truly like a "fruit bomb." The dry aroma of natural Aricha exudes intense fruity notes with heavy dried fruit character, interwoven with aromas of strawberry, mango, and apricot jam. The wet aroma is like sweet syrup, resembling thick apricot nectar wrapped in rustic honey or chocolate. On the palate it's not overpowering, with medium body, like fruity black tea.

Front Street Coffee Brewing Reference

Ethiopian coffee beans are mostly light-roasted with harder density, requiring hot water at 92°C-93°C to bring out the floral and fruity notes. For grind size, Front Street recommends medium-fine (78% passing through China standard No. 20 sieve). Too coarse and the rich compounds won't extract, making the coffee taste thin; too fine and it's prone to over-extraction at high water temperatures, bringing out bitterness.

Regarding the brewing ratio, Front Street believes 1:15 to 1:16 works well—use 1:15 for a richer mouthfeel, or 1:16 to more clearly perceive the floral and sweet notes, allowing the flavors to expand more fully.

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

Three-pour method: First, wet the coffee bed with twice the coffee's weight in water to form a dome, and let it bloom for 30 seconds; then pour in a slow circular motion from inside to outside until reaching 125g, pause; wait for the coffee bed to drop to halfway down the dripper, then continue with the same slow pour for the third stage until 225g, until all the coffee liquid has drained through; remove the dripper. Total time approximately 2 minutes.

When brewing this Aricha, you can smell the full aroma of ripe fruit, with obvious fermented notes and green grape flavors on the palate; as the temperature drops slightly, lemon-like acidity and creamy smoothness emerge, with a finish of ripe grape juice.

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