All Yirgacheffe coffees are given a grade, as well as a letter characteristic, either A or B. Unlike with the other large coffee regions, these letters do indeed make a qualitative distinction. For all Yirgacheffe coffees, the letter A designates “coffee having Yirgacheffe flavor”; the letter B designates “coffee lacking Yirgacheffe flavor. It is possible to find specialty grade coffees among the B category. These would be coffees with excellent cup characteristics, but characteristics that cannot be considered “classic Yirgacheffe flavor.” The delivery center for all Yirgachefe coffees is the nearby large town of Dilla.
All commercial grade coffee, washed and unwashed, graded 3 through 9, is simply called Yirgacheffe A or Yirgacheffe B. Both categories include the four Yirgacheffe zones: