Introduction to Grind Size, Roast Level, and Processing Methods for Paradise Bird Estate Specialty Coffee Beans with Slight Off-Flavors

FrontStreet Coffee believes this might be a country that not many people are familiar with, let alone its coffee. Papua New Guinea is a minor coffee-producing country, but the quality of its coffee cannot be overlooked. The most famous is PNG AA coffee, which features rich and mellow flavor, pleasant aroma, fruit-like sweetness, and rich layered taste. Its scarce production has caused the country's coffee prices to rise steadily. FrontStreet Coffee introduced this coffee bean because of its representativeness - the country's top-tier coffee is as beautiful and precious as its national bird.

Papua New Guinea: Origin and Characteristics

Papua New Guinea is an island nation in the western South Pacific and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The country's name consists of two parts: Papua and New Guinea. There are numerous islands here, about 600 in total of various sizes. It borders Indonesia and is adjacent to Australia to the south. Although it belongs to the Asia-Pacific region, it is actually an Oceanian country. Located in a tropical climate, it experiences high temperatures and abundant rainfall. It has fertile, rich volcanic soil. Papua New Guinea is rich in natural resources, but its economy is very underdeveloped. As one of the world's least developed countries, many mountain residents still live a self-sufficient tribal life, with only coastal areas being relatively more developed. Many farms clear land in forest areas, with some farms deep in the forest, almost completely isolated from the outside world. Therefore, Papua New Guinea doesn't have many large-scale coffee plantations - approximately 75% of its coffee comes from small local farms.

Flavor Profile

Papua New Guinea coffee features high sweetness with bright, uplifting apricot-like fruit acidity, balanced and relatively rich mouthfeel, and overall elegant and clean smooth flavor with fruit aromas. Generally, coffees with good acidity are difficult to ensure have good body, but the precious quality of Papua New Guinea coffee lies in its possession of both quality medium acidity and excellent body. It leaves a long aftertaste after tasting.

Sigri Estate

Sigri Estate is also known as Paradise Bird Estate, and is commonly known by this name in the market. FrontStreet Coffee chose this name partly because it's more well-known, and partly because the name "Paradise Bird" sounds more appealing. The estate was established in 1950 and has been in operation for over 60 years, making it a pioneer in the local coffee industry. Paradise Bird Estate is located in the Waghi Valley of the Western Highlands Province, in high-altitude mountainous areas around 1500 meters above sea level. It has rich mineral volcanic soil, cool climate, fertile ground, and abundant rainfall. Paradise Bird Estate has consistently maintained high standards of cultivation and processing systems over the years. During the harvest season from April to September each year, only fully ripe red coffee cherries can be hand-picked, ensuring perfect balance between acidity and sweetness in the coffee cherries. At Paradise Bird Estate, cupping is conducted daily to ensure the plantation provides customers with consistently high-quality premium coffee. This has made Paradise Bird Estate a classic in the world of specialty coffee. During the peak harvest season, Paradise Bird Estate can employ around 6,000 workers, with half of them living and eating in the plantation's own employee housing. The plantation has free clinics and primary schools for employees' children.

Coffee Bean Processing Method

After harvesting fully ripe red coffee cherries, they are sent to the estate's own washing station for processing. The local washing process in Papua New Guinea differs from the washing methods used in Central and South America. It employs three washing fermentations, each soaking for about 24 hours, with clean water replaced each time to control the coffee flavor. After washing, the parchment is removed from the green beans and various grading processes are performed, such as AA, AB, PB (peaberry), etc. This meticulous post-processing method brings bright and delicate fruit acidity and clean, lingering sweet flavor to the coffee itself. FrontStreet Coffee has found that coffee-producing regions with strict grading systems have a common characteristic: their coffee beans have uniform particle size and few defective beans. In such cases, the coloring is even during roasting, and the taste is much cleaner. The most obvious example is when FrontStreet Coffee compared Indonesian Lintong Mandheling with Golden Mandheling - Golden Mandheling has extremely strict selection, very uniform bean size, and its taste cleanliness is significantly better than Lintong Mandheling.

Papua New Guinea Paradise Bird Coffee Bean Specifications

Estate: Paradise Bird Estate

Variety: Typica

Grade: AA

Altitude: 1600-1800 meters

Processing Method: Washed

FrontStreet Coffee Paradise Bird Coffee Bean Roasting Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee Paradise Bird Coffee Bean Roasting Curve

FrontStreet Coffee recommends using medium roasting because Typica varieties are low-density green beans that are not suitable for dark roasting. To highlight the inherent refreshing acidity and fruit aromas, focus will be placed on heat adjustment after the first crack. First, determine the basic conditions of the green beans, then decide on the roasting method. It is a washed-processed, low-density green bean with 10% moisture content and 17 years of age. The input temperature is set based on the current green bean state.

Using Yangjia 800N, with 550g of green beans, specific operations: When the furnace temperature reaches 200°C, load the beans with damper setting at 3. After 1 minute of steaming, adjust heat to 160°C, keeping the damper unchanged. When the furnace temperature reaches 160°C, adjust heat again, reducing to 115°C. Roast to 5'35", temperature 152°C, when the bean surface turns yellow and grassy smell completely disappears - dehydration is complete, adjust damper to 4. At the 9-minute mark, ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, and the toast aroma clearly transforms to coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this point, listen carefully for the sound of first crack. First crack begins at 8'40", maintain small heat without change, fully open damper to 5 (heat adjustment must be very careful, not so small that there's no cracking sound). At 40°C, unload at 191.3°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Paradise Bird Coffee Bean Cupping Report

FrontStreet Coffee Paradise Bird Coffee Bean Brewing Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee recommends using a Kono dripper because its ribs are few and located at the bottom, allowing the filter paper to fit tightly against the dripper to achieve air restriction effects, thereby slowing water flow and increasing water-coffee contact time. This allows for extraction of more coffee substances through immersion, enhancing the rich mouthfeel. Water temperature should be 88°C, which is a relatively low brewing temperature that can avoid extracting too many undesirable flavors from the coffee beans during the brewing process, because as coffee beans are roasted darker, their undesirable flavors also increase. For coffee amount, FrontStreet Coffee chooses 15 grams with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio. The grind size is determined by setting the grind setting to achieve 80% pass-through rate on a Chinese standard #20 sieve. FrontStreet Coffee uses segmented extraction: 30g of water for 30-second bloom, then small circular pour to 125g for segmentation. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. (Timing starts from the bloom) Total extraction time is 2 minutes.

FrontStreet Coffee Paradise Bird Coffee Brewing

Flavor Description

The sweetness of toast, nutty sweetness, and slight fruit acidity create a pleasant layered sensation with fruit-like aromas. The spicy sweetness in the aftertaste is quite special, with rich and balanced mouthfeel.

Important Notice :

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