Why are Ethiopian coffee beans of different sizes? What are the characteristics of Ethiopian coffee? What kind of coffee is the native heirloom?

Ethiopia has the largest number of varieties in the bean list on the front street. Therefore, the front street backstage will often receive "special feedback" from guests and friends about Essex beans. For example: the size of beans!

Although coffee beans belong to agricultural products and cannot have standard templates to reproduce the same individuals as industrial products, at least most of the time the size of a bag of beans we buy is relatively uniform. The big ones are not very big, and the small ones are not very small. Ethiopia's beans, on the other hand, are not only of different sizes, but even of different lengths, with a variety of looks, giving people a mixed feeling. So the guest with this feeling went to Qianjie and asked, "is this normal?"

Indeed, this situation is easy to be misunderstood. But for Ethiopia's beans, it is a very normal phenomenon. Why would you say that? We might as well take a look at the three major characteristics of Ethiopia that are different from other producing countries: varieties, harvesting patterns, and grading systems.

The native species of Ethiopia, "Heirloom", is the most common species in Ethiopia on the market. Although Ethiopia's "digital coding species" (74, 75 series) and native Rosa are very popular in the past two years, the original species are still the mainstream species in Ethiopia. Then the question arises: what is the original species?

In fact, the original species is not a single variety, but a general term, which refers to all coffee varieties grown in Ethiopia. Ethiopia, the birthplace of Arabica species, has countless varieties of coffee. Since human exploration alone, more than 2000 species have been recorded. Not to mention those species that have not been recorded or explored.

As a result, Ethiopia, as a treasure trove of coffee genes with great potential, is always noticed by coffee hunters abroad. Through exploration, everyone is trying to find high-quality varieties in Ethiopia that are comparable to rose summer and better than rose summer. The Ethiopian government made difficulties at this time. On the one hand, the number of varieties was so complicated that it was as difficult to identify all of them. On the other hand, we have to prevent these hunters from stealing varieties! So after careful consideration, the government decided to call the varieties born in Ethiopia "native species". Not only for the purpose of protection, but also to reduce the trouble caused by the variety.

Do you still remember the "three grades of raw coffee beans" shared in the street some time ago? It is mentioned in the front street that Ethiopia's raw bean grading criteria are the defect rate of beans and the cup score of coffee, unlike neighboring countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, where bean size is used as the grading standard. And the reason for the establishment of classification standards, not only because of the complex number of varieties, but also because of one of the most critical factors! That is the mainstream planting and harvesting model in Ethiopia. And this also contributed to the formation of the general name of native species.

The mainstream planting and harvesting model in Ethiopia most of the coffee produced in coffee producing areas comes from plantation coffee! It refers to a large-scale, privately owned coffee plantation. In this mode, coffee can be planted, harvested, treated and sold in large quantities and uniformly, and the variety and quality can be well guaranteed. But the premise is that it will cost a lot of money to build the plantation. Although nearly 1/5 of Ethiopia's citizens depend on coffee for a living, we all know that the region is not rich. So there are very few farmers who can basically build plantations in Ethiopia, even if they have a large working population. As a result, nearly 90% of the coffee produced in Ethiopia belongs to three other types of coffee: forest, semi-forest and pastoral.

Forest coffee refers to the coffee harvested by farmers from the mountains and forests of Ethiopia, where coffee trees grow in the wild. These coffee trees are unattended and uncared for, and whenever the coffee fruit is ripe, the coffee farmers will go back and forth to collect the coffee. Semi-forest coffee refers to the coffee trees planted in the forest and the range of farmers' lives, although the former are wild coffee trees, but because they are closer to the scope of farmers' lives, these coffee trees will be taken care of and harvested by special personnel. Pastoral coffee means that coffee is planted and harvested by farmers. The general planting scene is the farmer's field or backyard, in short, it is within the scope of farmers' life. This mode of coffee accounts for more than 55% of the annual output of Ethiopian coffee and is the main player of Ethiopian coffee.

Whether it is forest coffee, semi-forest coffee or pastoral coffee, they all have one common feature. That is, most of them belong to the mixed harvest of varieties. The former two needless to say that pastoral coffee, which is grown by farmers themselves, also comes from wild varieties harvested in the forest. Unless special needs or varieties are given above, curry farmers will not deliberately distinguish between the varieties harvested. So many farmers still don't know what kind of coffee he grows. Then, because the source of income is mainly the amount of coffee fruit, they will harvest all the coffee fruit they can see. As long as it is ripe coffee fruit, no matter big or small, no matter fat or thin, all must go into the basket! When mixed, the fruits are sold to nearby processing plants or cooperatives. After receiving the fruit from different farmers, the processing plant will not make a distinction, but will directly treat it uniformly and then sell it to raw bean merchants.

Therefore, whether in the planting stage, the harvest stage, or the treatment stage, coffee varieties are constantly mixed, mixed and remixed. Different varieties have different appearance characteristics, so that's why Ethiopian coffee beans vary in size and length. Because from the beginning, they were not the same breed. It is precisely because of this that there are "native species", "defect rate classification" and other names and systems that are different from the conventional ones.

And if we choose an Ethiopian coffee bean that is not native, such as the new ALO on Qianjie recently, it is 74158. Then we can see that beans are roughly the same in size and appearance. This is the main difference between a native species and a single variety.

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