Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Coffee

Yirgacheffe is a Mocha coffee bean, grown in Yirgacheffe in Southern Ethiopia. This a very popular coffee with light floral and berry notes at the outset which give it a delightful sweetness. To appreciate the delicious flavour of this coffee it is best drunk black.

Yirgachefe is one of the districts in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ region of Ethiopia and is named after the largest town in this district Yirgachefe. It is also known as Irgachefe. The Ethiopian government holds trademarks for three of its coffees; Harar, Sidamo and Yirgacheffe.

Yirgacheffe is considered to be one of the best coffees to come out of Ethiopia which is believed to be the birth place of coffee.
Ethiopia has the highest concentration of highland areas in the whole continent of Africa. This is particularly true of Yirgacheffe as it is grown between 5800 and 6600 feet. Coffees in Ethiopia are sold both at auction and direct from co-operatives and harvest runs from late October through to April.

Our Yirgacheffe is a wet processed coffee which means that the beans need to be de-pulped before they are dried. This requires special equipment and large amounts of water to complete the process. It takes between 24 and 36 hours to soak the cherry flesh from the beans. Many farms use the waste water from this process in soil fertilisation programmes. Once washed and pulped the coffee beans have to have their moisture reduced to about 10%. The sun is usually used to do this down to about 12-13% and then the remaining 3% is removed by machine or hot air dryer. The enemy of coffee is mildew and that is why they have to get the water levels down so low, even 10% water content accounts for 20% of the weight of the coffee bean. The final process in this is called hulling which is simply the removal of the parchment before the coffee is packed into sacks. We believe that wet processing produces the best Yirgacheffe Coffee.

Our Yirgacheffe has a delightfully clean taste and a delicious astringent flowery, fruity flavour. The clean flavour is mainly due to the wet process. Yirgacheffe coffee can be drunk on its own or used as part of a blend. Blending Yirgacheffe with either Indian Mysore or Old Brown Java Coffee gives two very old coffee recipes that has stood the test of time because they are delicious! We think it’s best to brew Yirgacheffe in a cafetiere or to use a filter. In espresso overusing Yirgacheffe in a blend can sometimes make the blend a little too high in acidity.