Ethiopian Guji Natural: A Hario v60 Filter Guide

The Coffee: Ethiopian Guji Natural

Accompanied by the traditionally boozy and cherry-rich notes of a natural Ethiopian coffee, comes an indulgent and complex coffee from the highlands of Guji, Ethiopia that we are honoured to feature as our most recent Single Friend.

Nothing embodies the phrase “specialty coffee” than a natural Ethiopian. Ethiopian coffees are praised for their complex body and combination of fruity and floral flavour notes.

Our Ethiopia Kercha Grade 1 is a naturally processed coffee, with a balanced body and boozy cherry aroma. With the flavour notes of black cherry, figs, and cream, and topped off with an aftertaste of stewed fruit.

Grown in the highlands of Guji, between 1850 and 1950 masl, the coffee cherries are produced by over 650 smallholder farmers, each with an average farm size of 5 acres per farmer. After the 10 months it takes for the coffee cherries to develop, they are collected at the Kercha Washing Station for processing. There, the cherries are left to dry in the sun on African drying beds for approximately 15-21 days. During this time, the cherries are closely monitored and raked. During the hottest peak of the day, the cherries are covered to protect the from the sun, and again during the night to prevent moisture and rainfall from reaching it. 

The Method: Hario V60 Filter Brew.

Today, we have a special brew guide, exclusively optimised to maximise the innate flavour of our Ethiopia Guji.

For this brew guide, we will be using a Hario v60, the most common filter brewer on the market. 

We will be dosing 24 grams of coffee, medium-coarsely ground, with a final brew yield of 400 millilitres. 

1. To begin, we will start by taring (aka “zeroing out”) our scale, and dosing our coffee. We recommend using a kitchen scale with high sensitivity, like our Brewista Smart Scale 2 to ensure the exact amount of coffee is dosed. This is important to ensure we are hitting the correct extraction yield, and pouring our coffee correctly throughout the process.

2. Once we have dosed our 24 grams of coffee, let's grind it to a medium-coarse consistency. By grinding our coffee slightly coarser than usual, we have more control over the contact time our water has with the coffee grounds. This will give us further control of our final brew time.

3. Let’s boil our water! If you do not have a temperature-controlled kettle, do not worry! I recommend boiling your usual kettle and letting it rest for around a minute to cool down the temperature to get around 93 degrees. You do not have to worry too much about the exact temperature of your water, as our Ethiopian Guji is a filter-roasted coffee, we can allow for higher temperature variance in our water.

4. Once we’ve prepared our coffee. We’re good to go. Grab yourself your v60 brewer and filters, place them over your carafe or vessel of choice, and let’s give them a rinse using our hot water. Rinsing the filter papers gets out that papery taste that the filter papers have. Be sure to discard this filter-paper-water before moving on to the next step! Pour in your ground coffee and let’s go!

5. This next stage is arguably the most important. It’s time to bloom. We will pour 50grams of our water on top of our bed of coffee. We bloom our coffee in a ratio of around 2:1 (2 parts water, to 1 part coffee). Blooming is critical in ensuring a correctly extracted filter coffee. This process begins with what we call degassing, which allows the coffee to release the CO2 that’s trapped inside during the roasting process and opens up its pores. Once we’ve poured this amount, let it sit for 45 seconds to absorb all of the water.

6. Now that the difficult bit is over, it’s time to finish this off! The next step is to pour 150 grams of water over the bed of coffee, ensuring all our grounds are soaked. I like to stir the coffee around with the back of a spoon to ensure all our coffee is wet.

7. Once the water has gone through our v60, let’s do it again, this time pouring 100 grams of coffee and letting the water drip through the brewer. 

8. Repeat the previous step again, and there we have it! 400 grams of delicious Ethiopian Guji liquid-gold. Enough to share, or keep to yourself (I won't tell anyone). 

I recommend letting the coffee sit for a couple of minutes before drinking. Whilst the coffee is hot, it has pleasant green-apple acidic notes and a full-bodied cherry aroma. As the coffee cools down, the rich cherry flavour becomes incredibly indulgent. The texture of the brew resembles fresh cream and the aftertaste reminds me of a Christmas fruit-pie! Delicious!