Flavor Profile, Growing Region, and Brewing Parameters for Washed Yellow Catuai from HIU Primavera Estate, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Yellow Catuai is a hybrid of Mundo Novo and Caturra, first bred in 1949 by Brazil's Instituto Agronomico de Campinas. Like Red Catuai, it shows outstanding disease resistance and suits cultivation at higher altitudes.

To brew the Primavera lot as a pour-over: use 15g of coffee at a medium grind (small Fuji ghost tooth grinder at setting #4) in a V60 dripper with water at 88–89°C. Pour 30g of water and bloom for 27 seconds, then pour to 105g and stop. When the water level drops to about half the bed, resume pouring slowly until you reach 225g, discarding the tail end. The water-to-coffee ratio is 1:15 and total extraction time is 2:00.

Brazil Primavera Washed Yellow Catuai

Country: Brazil

Estate: Primavera Estate

Region: Minas Gerais

Roast Level: Medium roast

Processing Method: Washed

Variety: Yellow Catuai

The Brazil HiU Micro Lot

The HiU program is an initiative to raise coffee quality across Central and South America, started by Mr. Graciano Cruz of Panama, a well-known figure in honey processing.

The program applies natural or honey processing to carefully chosen micro lots, and only coffees that cup above 85 points may carry the HiU seal—an arrangement that benefits both estate owners and processors alike.

Flavor Notes: Orange, nuts, genmaicha (brown rice tea), peanuts

Brazil grows an enormous range of coffees, but its industry has long emphasized volume and affordability, so truly premium specialty lots are comparatively rare. Even so, Brazilian coffee is an excellent component for blends.

Brazilian coffee is defined by low acidity paired with a pleasant bitterness. The mouthfeel is exceptionally smooth, with subtle grassy aromatics, and the cup balances gentle bitterness against a smooth sweetness that finishes clean. Brazilian coffee may never be flashy, but it is also free of obvious flaws: that mild, even-keeled profile—low acidity, moderate body, delicate sweetness—makes it a rewarding coffee to pick apart note by note.

On some estates in the Cerrado region of Minas Gerais, in southeastern Brazil, heirloom Bourbon and Yellow Catuai are still grown. Though these coffees share a region, each has its own distinct character, and together they suit mainstream tastes well. As the world's largest producer, Brazil accounts for roughly one-third of global coffee consumption across every grade and variety, giving it enormous weight in the international coffee trade. And although natural disasters strike Brazil several times more often than other origins, its sheer cultivated area more than compensates.

Minas Gerais Primavera Estate Yellow Catuai [Washed]
Flavor: Orange, peanuts, genmaicha, nuts, and a caramel finish. The sweet-tart character, reminiscent of fresh orange juice, pairs with a smooth texture for a cup that is unmistakably Brazilian.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you want to explore more of what Brazil does well, FrontStreet Coffee's Cerrado Red Bourbon is a classic single-origin choice: medium roasted to bring out rich notes of cream, peanut, toast, caramel, and hazelnut, with a rounded, low-acid body and just a whisper of bitterness—equally at home in a pour-over, moka pot, espresso, siphon, or French press. FrontStreet's Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon from Mogiana, near southern Minas Gerais, is another favorite, offering a clean sugarcane sweetness plus fruit and chocolate notes you won't find from other origins.