Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Coffee Beans

What is Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Coffee?

Ethiopia is not only the largest coffee producer in Africa, but it also has the largest domestic consumption on the continent too. This developed domestic consumption of coffee has been driven by the long history with coffee the country has. The Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee is light-bodied coffee bringing fruity flavours and floral notes.

Home to the famous “Kaldi”, the goat herder who supposedly first discovered coffee’s ‘caffeinated’ qualities. Many coffee species are indigenous to Ethiopia, with Heirloom now the most common. Coffee beans are grown in a number of regional zones to the west and south of the capital Addis Ababa, most famously Sidamo and Yirgacheffe.

Ethiopia has an abundance of varied flavour profiles – depending on the process and region the coffee is produced – from strawberry fruit, to mango, passion fruit and pineapple. If sweet juicy fruits are your thing – Ethiopia is the answer.

Taste

The Ethiopian Yirgacheffe flavour profile is a fine example of a high quality Ethiopian coffee, with a strong body, excellent fruity flavours accompanied by balanced acidity and a clean taste.

Origin

Known as the horn of Africa, Ethiopia is a northern African nation steeped in history. Bordering Somalia to the East, and Eritrea to the north, it remains surprisingly politically and economically stable given its neighbours.

Exporting through the port of Djibouti, Ethiopia exports over 3m bags of coffee per annum. Mountainous, forested and arid desserts, Ethiopia has a vast array of landscapes and climates. Central Government is managed from the Capital city of Addis Ababa – one of the highest cities in Africa, and base for one of the United Nations largest headquarters.

Ingredients

Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee is a wet processing (washed) coffee grown at elevations from 1,700 to 2,200 meters above sea level, and is the considered the best high grown coffee in southern Ethiopia, an exotic coffee region known for fine coffees. These elevations qualify Yirgacheffe as Strictly High Grown (SHG) / Strictly Hard Bean (SHB) coffees, where coffees grow slowly due to the altitude, allowing additional time for the tree to deliver nutrients to the coffee and develop the best flavours.

We love this fruity African coffee; it even has a strong following with our regular customers. It can also be sampled in our African Gift Set, which is always a hit. If you wanted to try something milder, we would recommend our Pure Kenya Blue Mountain, or our Kenya AA, if you wanted something more intense.

Coffee from Ethiopia runs the gamut from full-bodied, sweet and fruity to lighter-bodied, citrusy and floral, depending on how it's processed. When you hear people rave about coffee from the well-known Yirgacheffe region, they're mainly referring to washed, or wet process, coffee. Ethiopian Yirgacheffe is the coffee that's delicate, floral, and tea-like, with shimmery citrus notes and a clean, light body. (It's worth mentioning that the prized Geisha or Gesha varietal, which carries similar tasting notes to washed Yirgacheffe beans, comes from Ethiopia as well. It was discovered in the 1930s outside of Gesha, Ethiopia, and eventually brought to Panama.) Washed Yirgs have a rather high-class, coffee-snob reputation and—at a lower price point than Geishas—they're a great gateway to appreciating specialty coffee (and impressing your friends).

But what about the other kid sister of Ethiopian coffee beans, the natural processed Ethiopians, with their honey-thick body and bright, decadent berry flavor? Where's their hype? Until recently, natural (or dry process) Yirgs have taken a back seat to their washed colleagues; they're generally seen as comparatively common, and of variable or unpredictable quality. Conventional wisdom holds that they're suitable to brighten up a blend, perhaps, but far less favoured as a single origin on the specialty market.

We're glad that's changing! It's time for natural processed Ethiopians to have their time in the sun (which is funny, of course, because natural process beans already spend a lot of time in the sun).