Ethiopia Yirgacheffe – green coffee beans for home roasting

Ethiopia Yirgacheffe – green coffee with a floral and fruity character

Ethiopia Yirgacheffe is an interesting green coffee for you who wants to work with a coffee where aroma, fruitiness, and origin character can play a clear role in the finished cup.

These are green, unroasted coffee beans that you must roast yourself before they can be ground and used for regular coffee brewing.

The supplier's flavor profile indicates apricot, plum, milk chocolate, and raisins. Yirgacheffe is also described as a coffee with a complex aromatic profile, where floral and fruity characteristics can play a central role.

The tasting notes for a green coffee should be seen as a description of the coffee's potential. How your finished coffee will taste depends, among other things, on your roast profile and the subsequent brewing.

At Brændeholm Risteri, we work with this Yirgacheffe ourselves and roast it in both a light and a medium roast profile. This gives us practical experience with how differently the same green coffee can develop through roasting.

If you want to compare with other green coffees, you will find our entire selection of raw and green coffee beans for home roasting.

Our experience with roasting Yirgacheffe

We use the same Yirgacheffe for two different roast profiles.

The interesting thing is that the coffee does not just become “more or less roasted.” The balance between aroma, fruitiness, body, and sweetness also changes.

Light roast – more floral and aromatic

In our light roast, we find Yirgacheffe to be more floral, fresh, and aromatic.

Here, we try to keep the roasting character more in the background so that the green coffee's own character gets as much space as possible.

This is the profile we choose when we want to highlight the coffee's lighter, more fruity, and origin-typical side.

If you want to taste our interpretation, you can see Ethiopia Yirgacheffe – light roast.

Medium roast – softer and more balanced

When we roast Yirgacheffe longer, we find the medium-roasted version to be softer and more balanced.

The fruity and aromatic character is still present, but is countered more by roundness, sweetness, and body.

This is therefore a good direction if you want to preserve the character of Yirgacheffe, but at the same time want a more rounded coffee expression.

You can compare with our Ethiopia Yirgacheffe – medium roast.

Which roast profile should you choose?

There is no single correct roast profile for Ethiopia Yirgacheffe.

When you buy the coffee green, the very opportunity to influence the result yourself is a large part of the experience.

As a general starting point for flavor, you can think like this:

• Lighter roast: More room for floral aroma, freshness, fruitiness, and origin character
• Medium roast: More balance between the coffee's aromatic character, sweetness, and body
• Darker roast: More distinct roast character and less focus on the most delicate floral and fruity sides

These are general directions and not a fixed recipe. Your coffee roaster, batch size, and other roasting parameters affect the result.

If you want to understand roast degrees better, you can read more about our light, medium, and dark roast profiles.

Green coffee profile

• Origin: Ethiopia
• Coffee: Yirgacheffe
• Product: Raw / green coffee beans
• Growing altitude: Approx. 1,700–2,200 m.a.s.l.
• Bean sorting: Screen 17–18
• Producer: Yahenu PLC
• Flavor notes: Apricot, plum, milk chocolate, and raisins
• Character: Floral, fruity, and aromatic
• Usage: Home roasting / own coffee roasting
• Roast degree: Determined by you

What do the flavor notes on green coffee beans mean?

The flavor notes apricot, plum, milk chocolate, and raisins do not mean that the green bean itself tastes like a finished cup of coffee with these flavors.

The notes describe the character that can be experienced when the coffee is roasted and brewed.

The roasting has a great significance for the result. A lighter profile can provide more room for the fresh, floral, and fruity elements, while a longer roast can change the balance toward more sweetness, body, and roast character.

Therefore, two home roasters can start with exactly the same Yirgacheffe and end up with two distinctly different coffees.

That is one of the most interesting things about roasting coffee yourself.

How to get to know Yirgacheffe better

If you have not previously roasted this coffee, it can be an advantage to start with a smaller test batch.

Feel free to note the most important things from each roast and the subsequent tasting. If you change fewer parameters at a time, it becomes easier to understand how your roast profile affects the coffee.

A particularly interesting exercise with this Yirgacheffe is to roast two different profiles and taste them side by side.

For example, you can work with one lighter profile focusing on the floral and aromatic expression and one more developed profile focusing on balance and body.

In this way, you get first-hand experience with how great an impact roasting has on the same green coffee.

From green Yirgacheffe to finished coffee

At Brændeholm Risteri, we work with this Yirgacheffe ourselves from green coffee bean to finished roasted coffee.

We have chosen two different profiles because we think the green coffee can show different interesting sides:

Light roast to highlight the floral and aromatic character.

Medium roast to create a softer and more balanced cup.

When you buy the coffee green, you decide for yourself which direction you want to go.

This also means that our pre-roasted versions should not be interpreted as the definitive answer to how Yirgacheffe “should” be roasted. They merely show the two profiles we have chosen ourselves after working with the coffee.

If you want to explore other coffees from the green bean and onward, you can explore our entire selection of green coffee beans.

Green coffee beans from a coffee roastery on Funen

At Brændeholm Risteri, we roast coffee ourselves at our roastery on Funen.

When you buy green Ethiopia Yirgacheffe from us, it is therefore a coffee we also work with practically in the roastery ourselves.

This means that our descriptions of the difference between the light and medium-roasted version are based on our own experience with the coffee – not just on a general description of Yirgacheffe.

It is precisely this experience that we want to pass on, while at the same time giving you the freedom to create your preferred roast profile yourself.