Why did Hambela natural coffee beat Geisha on stage?

Hambela Huakui coffee beans from Ethiopia's Hambela region won the 2017 Taste of Harvest Natural Group championship with a score of 88.21, driven by intense strawberry and cream aromas. The same year, barista Li Jianfei used the lot in the World Coffee Brewing Competition and placed second in the China region, beating Geisha entries. The win pushed the region and the Huakui name into wider recognition among geisha coffe enthusiasts worldwide.

Huakui is the Chinese transliteration of Hambella, referring to green beans from the Sidamo Hambella area. The success led to the Huakui X.0 series and a Small-Bean Huakui branch, with flavor differences across batches. Ethiopia remains one of the main coffee producing countries, and its harvest-season competitions keep raising the profile of lots like these.

On the stage of specialty coffee, the Hambella Huakui coffee beans from Ethiopia's Hambella region shot to fame with the title of the 2017 TOH Natural Group Champion, and subsequently gained even greater renown when a barista defeated Geisha with them in a brewing competition. This bean not only witnessed the rise of the Hambella region but also spawned the Huakui X.0 series and the Small-Bean Huakui branch. This article will trace the history of Huakui, compare the flavor differences across different batches, and share Front Street Coffee's brewing insights on Huakui and Huakui 5.0, taking you deeper into the unique charm of this African natural-process bean.

The rise of green bean competitions means specialty coffee regions never lack for talking points, and every year some beans stand out, especially in African regions where competitions are held on schedule during harvest season. Among the dozen or so African coffee-producing countries, those beans that have been carefully cultivated throughout the year and meticulously processed after ripening often rise to the top.

If a barista then uses it to win a major competition, that is the icing on the cake—people can recognize its high quality from its outstanding performance on the competition stage. Looking back at the history of Huakui coffee beans, it conquered our taste buds in textbook fashion and won our affection.

Huakui coffee beans are actually the Chinese direct transliteration of the English "Hambella" — Hambella coffee beans. They are a lot of green beans from the Sidamo Hambella region that competed in the 2017 TOH green bean competition (the Taste Of Harvest). With intense strawberry and cream aromas, they stood out and won the Ethiopian TOH Natural Group championship that year with a high score of 88.21.

That was not the end of it, of course—after all, every year TOH has a champion bean, and raising Huakui coffee beans' fame and value to the next level required other opportunities as well, such as a barista choosing it as a competition bean for a brewing competition and also achieving a good ranking. That same year, barista Li Jianfei used that batch of coffee beans in the World Coffee Brewing Competition, defeating the Geisha coffees of many competitors and winning second place in the China region of the World Coffee Brewing Competition.

To understand the popularity of Hambella coffee beans in China, one needs to go back to the coffee context of that time. After 2004, Geisha coffee beans broke records repeatedly, and their outstanding quality made them the designated bean for many international competition baristas, "sweeping" competitions large and small—it was truly the Geisha era, with no bean able to contend with it. So what is Geisha coffee all about? According to Front Street's understanding, Geisha is actually the name of a coffee variety, with the English name "Gesha/Geisha." Some people thought it sounded very similar to the Japanese word for "geisha," so they transliterated it as Geisha coffee.

Because Geisha coffee is so famous, a Beijing green bean merchant introduced this championship batch of green beans into China. To better promote this Hambella natural-process coffee bean, they replaced "Hambella" with "Huakui" (meaning "head of the beauties" or "champion"), naming it after the "chief" to ride on Geisha's fame. And at the 2017 World Coffee Brewing Competition, an unremarkable Ethiopian Hambella natural-process coffee bean thus defeated the ever-victorious Geisha, making "Huakui" live up to its name and take root in people's hearts. This high-quality Hambella coffee bean became known to Chinese people under the name "Huakui."

Afterward, the Beijing green bean merchant followed up on the victory, introducing Hambella coffee beans year after year and using the Huakui X.0 series to distinguish production seasons. For example, Huakui 2.0 was released in 2018, Huakui 3.0 and 3.1 in 2019, and so on. Today, friends visiting Front Street Coffee's stores can still find Huakui 5.0 coffee. Of course, those familiar with Huakui will also notice that starting in 2020, Hambella coffee beans were divided into two types: Huakui 4.0 and Small-Bean Huakui. So what is Small-Bean Huakui all about?

As mentioned earlier, the original Huakui was processed by Buku Abel in the Hambella region, and Buku Abel belongs to DW Company. After winning the championship in 2017, DW Company further increased the number of processing plants in the core Hambella production area of Dimtu to produce Huakui. There are currently 5 coffee processing stations: Buku Abel, Tirtiro Goye, Seke Bokosa, Haro Soresa, and Buku Saysay. Among them, only coffee beans naturally processed by Buku Abel are Huakui coffee. And since coffee is an agricultural product, each year's flavor is affected by changes in the region's soil, climate and rainfall, and processing methods, resulting in slight variations. Of course, despite the variations, the variety's characteristic flavor profile is still retained.

Front Street keenly noticed the changes in Huakui. Front Street pays close attention to news from the production regions, and after observing Huakui's rise, we at Front Street naturally would not miss this bean, introducing Huakui every year to delight coffee lovers. In Front Street's cupping of each year's new-season Huakui coffee beans, even if the flavor differs somewhat, its full berry-juice body, ripe-fruit-like fermented quality, and medium pronounced sweetness are always present—this is one reason Front Street particularly likes Huakui coffee beans. At the same time, Front Street Coffee also discovered through cupping that the flavor and aroma of Huakui coffee beans with more small beans were very similar to the 2017 champion Huakui coffee beans.

At first, Front Street tasted flavors close to the 2017 Huakui in the 2018 and 2019 Huakui, but the body and aftertaste fell short of the 2017 Huakui. By comparing different batches of Huakui, this was more evident in the 2018 and 2019 Huakui; sometimes out of ten jute bags, a few bags would contain similar small beans. We realized that the main source of the 2017 Huakui's aroma was that some particularly small-bean varieties were present among the Huakui coffee beans.

Therefore, in 2019, Front Street confirmed this information and informed the green bean supplier, who subsequently confirmed it as well. After that, the small beans were separated out each year to form their own category. The 20/21 production season Hambella natural-process coffee beans were divided into Huakui coffee beans and Huakui 5.0 coffee beans. Although both are called Huakui, their flavors still differ—what exactly the flavors are like, you'll only know after drinking.

We took the 20/21 production season Huakui and Huakui 5.0 as examples for brewing, to understand in detail the differences between these two coffee beans. First, we need to determine the brewing approach. The actual extraction process plus the time to prepare equipment does not exceed 10 minutes. But without a clear brewing approach, you won't have that smooth, flowing enjoyment of a café barista—fumbling around during brewing is a "disaster" scene.

Generally, when we get a coffee bean, there is detailed bean information, including region, variety, flavor, and so on. Front Street Coffee, for instance, not only publishes the bean information—through flavor descriptions, it reduces the difficulty of choosing—but also prints a QR code on each bag. Simply scan it with WeChat to learn more about the beans, including more detailed region information, terroir conditions, post-processing techniques, roasting curves, and, for many people, the more practically useful brewing parameters. After all, no matter how good the story is, it needs to be paired with a cup of coffee you brewed yourself as "seasoning," right?

Regarding the brewing approach, Front Street recommends referring to the flavor description on the bean packaging. The flavor description on the packaging is obtained after Front Street Coffee roasts the beans and then conducts a joint cupping by Front Street's baristas and roasters. We can generally judge the roast level of the beans from the flavor description to determine the general brewing approach.

Flavor descriptions of明显 acidity with citrus, lemon, berry and other fruit and floral notes belong to light roast; descriptions of pronounced sugars, nutty chocolate alongside slight fruit acidity belong to medium roast; descriptions of nutty chocolate, creamy and full-bodied belong to dark roast. The flavor descriptions of Huakui and Huakui 5.0 lean toward fruity acidity—Huakui is passion fruit and fermented wine aroma, while Huakui 5.0 is citrus—so they can be judged as light-roast beans.

For light-roast beans, Front Street Coffee generally recommends pour-over brewing, using 15 grams of coffee, a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:15, a Hario V60 dripper and a relatively high water temperature of 90–93°C, with a medium-fine grind (which can be judged using the Chinese No. 20 standard sieve, with a sieve passing rate of 80%).

Then use the three-stage extraction method recommended by Front Street for brewing. The extraction method, as the name suggests, involves pouring water in three stages for extraction. First, bloom with twice the coffee grounds' weight in water, i.e., 30 grams of water for a 30-second bloom. Then pour in a slow circular stream until the scale reads 125 grams and pause. When the water level drops to 1/3, continue pouring until 225 grams and stop. (Timing starts from the beginning of the bloom.) The extraction time is 2'00".

After extraction, gently swirl the brewer, then begin the comparative tasting of these two Huakui coffees. Huakui has a pronounced melon-and-fruit aroma on the nose; on the palate, it is a soft fruit acidity, smooth in mouthfeel, with flavors of passion fruit, jackfruit, strawberry, and berries. Huakui 5.0, meanwhile, has prominent citrus and berry flavors, with a slight tropical fruit note and an obvious juicy mouthfeel.

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