Introduction:An in-depth look at how the renowned American green coffee brand 90+ creates high-flavor coffees through its exclusive processing techniques. This article focuses on its Ethiopian Natural Sidamo beans, detailing the origin of the bean variety, its unique flavor profile, and providing professional pour over recommendations and key parameters to help coffee enthusiasts replicate a professional-level extraction at home.

In the specialty coffee world, the name "90+" symbolizes top-tier quality with cupping scores exceeding 90 points, and it also represents an American green coffee company famous for its innovative processing methods. Through its self-developed Profile Processing system, the brand is involved in every stage from coffee cherry selection to post-harvest processing, successfully creating a variety of uniquely flavored beans—such as Eleta, which offers dried longan aromas and spicy layers, and Juliette, showcasing grape sweetness and micro-bubble sensations. This article will explore 90+'s brand development journey and provide practical pour over parameter suggestions for its Ethiopian Natural Sidamo beans, enabling you to brew professional-grade coffee at home.

Many coffee enthusiasts associate the name "90+" first and foremost with a symbol of high quality. This name, derived from the cupping score system, indeed reflects the brand’s commitment to quality. Coffee beans produced by 90+ generally exhibit distinct regional characteristics and complex flavor layers—for example, Eleta’s dried longan and spice profile, and Juliette’s grape and champagne notes. These distinctive flavor expressions help them stand out easily among numerous coffee products. And this uniqueness stems precisely from 90+’s original Profile Processing system, which controls coffee quality right from the source.

90+ (Ninety Plus), as an American green coffee company, represents not only high scores but also a rigorous philosophy of quality management. In coffee cupping standards, beans that score above 90 are typically considered exceptional, and 90+ has built its mission around producing coffee that meets or exceeds this benchmark. Varieties such as Eleta and Juliette, with their unique flavor profiles, have become classics in the eyes of many coffee professionals and enthusiasts. This irreplicable flavor character is the result of 90+’s exclusive processing technology.

The core competitiveness of 90+ lies in the Profile Processing system established by its founder, Joseph Brodsky. Unlike traditional green coffee traders who are only involved in purchasing and sales, 90+ intervenes from the breeding and selection stages of coffee cherries, using its self-developed processing techniques to ensure each batch of beans exhibits the desired flavor characteristics. Initially limited by funding, the company started with the post-harvest processing phase, sourcing fresh coffee cherries from local farmers and transporting them to its own processing plant for precision handling. This strategy enabled early products such as Aricha and Beloya to quickly gain market recognition, laying the foundation for subsequent full vertical integration.

With accumulated capital and experience, 90+ gradually expanded its industrial layout, beginning to collaborate with promising coffee farmers and deeply involving itself in all stages from planting to harvesting. Through close communication and technical guidance with producers, 90+ can adjust processing parameters and cultivation conditions based on target flavor profiles, ensuring the final product meets strict quality requirements. This comprehensive control from source to cup ensures that 90+’s beans not only maintain high flavor consistency but also receive high scores in international evaluations.

In 2009, 90+ expanded its production footprint to Panama. Leveraging the technical expertise gained in Ethiopia, the company established the "90+ Geisha Estate," dedicated to the Geisha variety. Since it couldn’t find a coffee variety in Ethiopia that could rival Geisha, 90+ decided to apply its processing techniques directly to this premium variety, with the goal of "making Geisha even better than Geisha." After five years of careful cultivation and technical adjustments, the estate officially launched its first batch of coffee beans in 2014, including the highly anticipated Eleta and Juliette—both of which showcase the perfect combination of 90+’s processing techniques and the Geisha variety.

Among 90+’s product line, the Geisha coffee beans Eleta and Juliette are renowned for their distinctive flavor profiles. Eleta, medium roasted, showcases bright acidity with notes of bergamot, sweet orange, and pineapple, paired with the sweetness of longan and preserved fruit, along with a crisp apple-like aftertaste, delivering a balanced and layered mouthfeel. Juliette presents muscat grape, champagne-like bubble sensation, and perfumed lemon freshness, combined with a full-bodied, rounded winey texture and a lasting sweet finish, creating a highly recognizable flavor profile. Both beans are grown in the Woakan region at altitudes of 1400–1800 meters, and through 90+’s special processing method, the purest flavor characteristics of the beans are preserved.

For home brewing of these two Ethiopian Natural Sidamo beans, it is recommended to use a V60 filter cone with water at 92°C. Use 15 grams of coffee grounds, maintaining a 1:15 golden ratio for coffee to water. The grind size is suggested to be adjusted to that of fine sugar (approximately 80% passing through a #20 sieve), which helps extend the extraction time and is suitable for sundried beans that may have faster drawdown tendencies. The brewing process is divided into three phases: the first stage involves pouring 30 grams of water for a 30-second bloom to initiate aroma release; the second stage is a steady pour up to 135 grams, using an inside-out circular motion to ensure even extraction; when the water level drops halfway, pour the final 90 grams to reach a total of 225 grams. The entire extraction should take about 2 minutes to achieve the best flavor balance.

90+’s success in Panama prompted the company to further expand its territory in 2019 by acquiring land near the Barú volcano to establish the new "90+ Barú Estate." This new site, with its volcanic soil nutrients and unique microclimate, is considered an ideal location for cultivating a new generation of high-quality coffee beans. Although the estate’s beans have not yet fully entered the market, given 90+’s past technical expertise and quality management experience, the industry widely anticipates more flavor surprises from this location in the future. This ongoing innovation and expansion is a key factor in how 90+ maintains its leading position in the competitive specialty coffee market.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.