Yega Xuefei Red Cherry Coffee Bean Story the effect of different hand cooking methods on flavor characteristics

Front Street Coffee Bean List has a Ye Jia Xue Fei red cherry coffee beans, generally come to the front street shop customers know, we have several different Ye Jia Xue Fei coffee beans, respectively from different cooperatives or processing plants,"that red cherry is also a cooperative?" Some customers will ask this. Red Cherry is actually a business plan to promote coffee quality, initiated by Trabocca, a Dutch green bean merchant. It is precisely because of the implementation of this plan that the quality of coffee in Ethiopia has been guaranteed and the income of coffee farmers has also been improved. As mentioned in the previous article of Qianjie Coffee, the guarantee of coffee quality is related to many aspects. Generally speaking, it is embodied in four aspects: variety, treatment method, altitude and roasting. Therefore, when drinking a good cup of coffee, it is advisable to analyze it from these aspects.

Each time Front Street Coffee gets a roasted coffee bean, it will try several different brewing methods to repeatedly taste its best flavor. Some people will think that changing the technique may not have much effect, it is indeed not particularly influential, especially like Ye Jia Xue Fei's unique citrus fruit tonality, it is difficult to say that changing the technique will completely cover up this tonality (unless the beans are not fresh), but more or less will affect the performance of this tonality, and there are many details on the performance will be different. Qianjie believes that coffee is a delicacy that needs to be tasted slowly in order to discover every change in its mouth.

Yegashefi region

Yirga cheffe is a small town in Ethiopia with an altitude of 1700-2100 meters. It is one of the highest coffee producing areas in the world and synonymous with Ethiopian fine coffee. Lake Turkana, Lake Abaya and Lake Chamo bring abundant water vapor here. In the rift valley represented by Misty Valley, fog permeates all year round, spring is like all the year round, the breeze is gentle, cool and humid, thousands of coffee trees thrive and multiply, giving birth to the unique fragrance of flowers and fruits of Yejia Xuefei, which is ambiguous and unpredictable.

Initially, the yeghashefi coffee tree was cultivated by European monks (a bit like Belgian monks growing wheat to brew beer), but later it was the responsibility of farmers or cooperatives. Coffee trees are naturally scattered in forests and fields and backyards. During harvest season, Ethiopian coffee trading companies would come to town to buy coffee beans collected by farmers and eventually auction them for export under the brand name "Yegashefi."

Project Red Cherry

Trabocca is aware of the uneven quality of Ethiopian coffee beans, which makes it difficult to raise prices and farmers 'incomes low. In order to reverse this situation, the Red Cherry Project was launched jointly with local coffee farmers to solve the problem from the source. By increasing the purchase price of high-quality coffee beans, coffee farmers were encouraged to complete each process of coffee bean picking and processing more carefully. In the picking stage, all manual picking was adopted to select coffee fruits with high maturity. Qianjie Coffee believes that the fine coffee launched in other countries can basically be regarded as red cherry coffee, because they all use this model to operate.

The Red Cherry Project is also a reinforcing practice, so that farmers spend more time in the process of selecting beans. The prices of these coffees are also relatively high. The main production areas are Yega Shefi, Sidama, Penga Forest, Lekanti, Kenbata, Irubaba, Hara, Lim, etc. These are unique flavors that can fully display the flavor of Ethiopian coffee.

Yerga Sherry Red Cherry Coffee Grade

ECX (Ethiopian Commodity Exchange) defines the defect rate of coffee beans as G1 and G2 respectively. G1 represents less than 3 defective beans per 300g of raw beans, G2 represents 4-12 defective beans per 300g of raw beans. Front Street Coffee currently has two types of Ye Jia Xue Fei red cherry coffee beans, both of which are G1 grade.

Two different types of Yerga Sherry red cherry coffee beans on the front street

Front Street Coffee currently has two different treatments of Ye Jia Xue Fei red cherry coffee beans, respectively, the use of red honey treatment and sun treatment.

coffee beans

sun-red cherry

Red honey red cherry

producing areas

Yega Shefi

Yega Shefi

Treatment plants/cooperatives

Altland treatment plant

IDIDO Cooperative

altitude

2300m

2000-2200m

varieties

native species

native species

level

G1

G1

approach

solarization

red honey treatment

Altland treatment plant

The Altrand processing plant has an average planting area of about 0.6 hectares per small coffee farmer, composed of hundreds of coffee farmers, which are planted at an altitude of nearly 2000 meters. The climate temperature difference is large and the soil is fertile, providing an excellent growing environment.

IDIDO Cooperative

IDIDO is a member of the Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU), which was founded in 2002 and has 24 junior cooperatives with about 50,000 farmers. Edido Cooperative is located in a high-altitude valley in the middle of Yegashev Town. The annual rainfall is about 1400-1800 mm. The local small farmers grow coffee at an altitude of about 2000 meters. Due to the cool mountain air, coffee ripens slowly. The small farmers then harvest the ripe red fruits from December to February every year.

solarization

After screening available coffee cherries in the treatment plant, the coffee cherries with intact pulp and peel are placed in an elevated shed for sun treatment. It is this way of putting high-intensity labor into the shed to isolate contact with the ground and prevent the dirt from being produced in the process of sun exposure, thus creating an unusually clean fruit flavor. After more than two weeks of sun exposure, the dark brown coffee cherries are professionally stored while the full flavor ripens. Before shipment, the processing plant will take the coffee beans out of the coffee cherries, sweet feeling can be imagined.

red honey treatment

The so-called honey treatment refers to the process of making raw beans dried in the sun with mucous membranes. After coffee beans have been stripped of their outer pulp, they have a sticky, gelatinous layer. The traditional washing method will wash it with clean water, but because of the water resource limitation of some high-altitude habitats, this direct drying method was born. The pectin mucosa part is the part with the highest sugar content of coffee fruit, and it is also an important part of coffee processing and fermentation. It can be said that 80% of this part determines the nutrient supply during the processing.

Yellow honey retains 60% pectin, red honey retains 75% pectin, and black honey hardly removes pectin.

baking contrast

Front Street Coffee uses a light roast method to roast these two red cherry coffee beans, but the roasting parameters will vary due to different treatments. Front Street Coffee has finally determined the following roasting curve by continuously adjusting parameters.

Front Street Coffee Sun Red Cherry Roasting Curve

Front Street Coffee Red Honey Red Cherry Roasting Curve

How to Make Front Street Coffee

When the two beans were brewed at Qianjie Coffee, the technique parameters should be kept consistent as much as possible, so as not to affect the final judgment.

Brewing parameters: V60 filter cup, 90℃ water temperature, 15g powder, 1:15 powder/water ratio, grinding degree BG #5F (Chinese standard No.20 sieve pass rate 80%)

Brewing method: staged extraction. Steaming with 30g water for 30s, injecting water in a circle to 125g with small water flow, stopping injecting water to 225g when the water level drops and exposing the powder bed, removing the filter cup when the water level drops and exposing the powder bed, and extracting for 200 ".

Flavor contrast

[Yejia Xuefei Red Cherry Sun G1] The sour and sweet taste is obvious at the entrance, with lemon, berry and fermented wine fragrance, and the citric acid of the aftertaste lasts for a long time and the sweetness is obvious.

[Yejia Xuefei Red Cherry Red Honey G1] can taste obvious floral fragrance in the mouth, with citrus, almond, berry, overall floral fragrance and citrus tone obvious, lingering sweet and lasting.

Front Street Coffee thinks that the difference between these two beans lies in that the berry of sun-dried red cherry and ripe fruit have obvious sour and sweet feeling and thick taste, while the flower fragrance of red honey cherry and citrus and almond aroma are obvious, the layered body is thinner, but the flavor layer is richer.

Front Street uses different brewing techniques to brew sun-dried red cherries

Front Street Coffee uses two different brewing techniques to brew Yerga Sherry Red Cherry beans, one knife flow and three water injections, to see how different techniques affect coffee flavor. Let's first understand what is a knife flow and three stages of water injection.

One knife flow: after the end of steaming, one-time water injection to the end, the middle does not stop. The taste is balanced, the flavor is outstanding, and it saves a lot of time for coffee shop production.

Three-stage water injection: also known as three-knife flow, the first stage of water injection steam, and then divided into two stages of water injection extraction. Compared to Yi Dao Liu, the taste was richer in layers.

[Brewing Parameters and Techniques]

The brewing parameters selected by Qianjie Coffee are unified as follows: Hario V60, powder water ratio 1:15, water temperature 90℃, grinding degree BG #5F (Chinese standard 20 sieve pass rate 80%).

One point that needs to be mentioned is that the grinding degree, the front street coffee uses the Baratza Encore bean grinder, even if it is the same brand of grinder, the grinding situation between them will still be different, the front street coffee will be re-screened every once in a while to see if the grinding degree needs to be adjusted.

In terms of brewing method, Qianjie Coffee uses twice the amount of steaming water as coffee powder, that is, 30g of water for steaming, and the steaming time is 30 seconds. The ratio of powder to water is 1:15, so the total water injection is 225g.

The main function of stewing is to help coffee beans exhaust. Coffee beans undergo a series of chemical reactions and physical changes during the roasting process from raw beans to mature beans. After reaching a certain degree of roasting, coffee beans will accumulate a large amount of gas (mostly carbon dioxide). The coffee beans of Qianjie Coffee are all freshly roasted, so it is generally recommended that guests raise the beans for three days first, so that the coffee beans can give priority to the release of carbon dioxide, so as to avoid the problem of instability and insufficient extraction in brewing.

One knife flow: after the end of stewing, directly inject water to 225g, the total time of water injection is 2 minutes (including stewing time).

Three-stage water injection: after the end of steam, the second stage of water injection to 125g, and finally water injection to 225g water stop, the total time of water injection 2 minutes (including steam time).

[Yejia Sherry Red Cherry Coffee Flavor Description]

A knife flow brewing flavor: the overall feeling is relatively soft, the aroma is more obvious, with lemon fragrance, flower fragrance, ripe orange aroma, the entrance nut flavor is obvious, citrus, plum acid tone, sweet caramel, cocoa flavor.

Flavor: The overall taste is layered, the aroma is obvious, with lemon fragrance, flower fragrance and fermented wine fragrance, the entrance has a full sense of fruit juice, citrus, citric acid, nutty flavor is weak, sweet with honey flavor.

Qianjie coffee found that a knife flow because of water column stirring more extraction speed faster, so more nutty flavor, layer feeling thinner. The fractional extraction is less stirred by water column. Although there is soaking time, the water flow quickly permeates the filter paper and flows downward. The extraction flavor is balanced, with aroma, ripe fruit and nut flavor, and distinct layers.