What are the main varieties of Brazilian coffee? Describing the low-acidity, sweet and mellow flavor of Brazilian Round Bourbon coffee beans

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Unlike the floral and citrusy acidity of African coffee beans, Brazilian coffee is characterized by its low acidity and mellow flavor profile. The selected Yellow Bourbon variety from Brazil's Queen Estate Farm coffee offers a clear taste and clean aftertaste, making it a single-origin that FrontStreet Coffee often recommends to those who prefer bitter-toned coffee. Below, FrontStreet Coffee discusses how to brew Brazil's Queen Estate Farm coffee for the best taste.

Yellow Bourbon Variety

Through research, FrontStreet Coffee learned that the world's Arabica coffee varieties consist of Typica and Bourbon, along with their derived descendants. Among these, Bourbon is primarily popular in Central and South American countries and is one of the main varieties in Brazilian coffee.

The name Bourbon originates from Bourbon Island, which is Réunion Island located on the east coast of Africa. In the 17th century, as a French territory, it was named Bourbon Island until the late 18th century when it was renamed. In the 18th century, the French introduced round coffee beans from Yemen to Bourbon Island where they began to grow and take root. It wasn't until 1860 that Brazil brought round Bourbon back to their country for cultivation, after which it spread to various Central and South American countries, becoming the most ancient Latin American coffee parent variety. Bourbon variety fruits are small and round, with high coffee bean density. Bourbon grown at high altitudes has high sweetness and bright acidity. Like Typica, it is an ancient excellent variety, but Bourbon has better resistance to leaf rust than Typica, and its flavor is no less impressive than Typica's.

Common Bourbon varieties change color from green gradually to light yellow, red, and finally to fully mature deep red from flowering to fruit maturity, hence called Red Bourbon. FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian daily blend is selected from the pure-flavored Red Bourbon variety. Additionally, there are Bourbon varieties that don't turn red when mature, instead becoming rarer yellow or pink colors, namely Yellow Bourbon and Pink Bourbon.

Queen Estate Farm is most proud of its Yellow Bourbon variety, which has won multiple awards in Brazil's Cup of Excellence competitions with its delicate and refined flavor. Common Bourbon coffee changes from green to light yellow, orange-yellow, red, and finally to fully ripe dark red, which is what we refer to as Red Bourbon. Red Bourbon coffee grown at high altitudes has balanced flavor, rich aroma, and smooth acidity. FrontStreet Coffee's daily blend is selected from Red Bourbon.

In the maturity stage, the fruit doesn't present cherry red color but instead appears yellow, discovered in 1930. Later, research by the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC) found that plants with dominant XcXc gene pairs produce red berries; plants with recessive xcxc gene pairs produce yellow berries, and in rare cases, plants with one dominant gene and another recessive Xcxc plant produce orange berries. Therefore, the "yellow" of Yellow Bourbon is due to genetic color selection. Yellow Bourbon grown in high-altitude areas contains large amounts of fructose, presenting sweet and juicy flavors. It once swept Brazil's "Cup of Excellence" competition for two consecutive years, almost sweeping the top three awards and becoming popular in the specialty coffee industry!

Mogiana Queen Estate Farm

The Mogiana region is located near southern Minas, in the northeastern part of São Paulo, and is listed as one of Brazil's three major specialty producing regions alongside the Cerrado and South Minas regions. Unlike typical Brazilian coffee beans, Mogiana has a cultivation altitude of 1100-1250 meters, much higher than other regions of São Paulo. The difference in altitude creates greater temperature variations, resulting in higher coffee quality. Meanwhile, the rolling terrain means Mogiana can only use semi-mechanical and purely manual harvesting of coffee cherries. Most of the coffee produced belongs to Brazil's specialty grade, namely Fine Cup, with the best cupping flavors and highest quality grades.

After harvesting mature Yellow Bourbon coffee cherries, Queen Estate Farm uses natural processing, allowing the coffee cherries to absorb more fruit pulp sweetness during the drying process. Brazil is located near the equator, and since the harvest season coincides with the dry season, coffee cherries are very suitable for direct dehydration and drying through sun exposure.

However, traditional "sun-drying" processes are very crude, with cherries scattered directly on dirt grounds after harvesting, producing coffee that easily mixes with earthy flavors, and uneven heating can produce negative aromas of over-fermentation. Queen Estate Farm first pours coffee cherries into water tanks, removing insufficiently ripe cherries through flotation, then spreads the coffee in small batches on better-ventilated African raised beds, turning them regularly, thus avoiding earthy and over-fermented flavors. Its sweetness is also a step above traditional natural processing.

FrontStreet Coffee's Queen Estate Farm Pour-over Reference

FrontStreet Coffee hopes to highlight the classic regional flavor of Queen Estate Farm, which is its rich chocolate aroma, therefore FrontStreet Coffee uses medium-dark roast. Through cupping, FrontStreet Coffee tasted that this Queen Estate Farm has very noticeable sweetness, so we use three-stage pouring in brewing to present more layers of the coffee.

Since coffee beans enter their最佳 tasting period 4-7 days after roasting, and after this time (about one and a half months after roasting), the coffee's aroma may have dissipated and some woody flavors may have developed. To avoid this situation, FrontStreet Coffee only ships coffee beans roasted within 5 days, so everyone can taste coffee with excellent flavor.

Dripper: KONO Dripper

Medium-dark roasted coffee beans mainly present a thick and rounded mouthfeel. Targeting this characteristic, FrontStreet Coffee will choose the slower-flow KONO dripper for extraction. The upper part of KONO is a smooth curved surface, with the lower part having guide ribs one-third of the length. This allows the filter paper to fit more closely with the dripper, restricting upward air flow, so hot water can only flow downward, creating a siphon-like extraction effect, allowing the aromatic substances in the coffee grounds to be released more fully.

Grind Size: Medium Grind

Considering the increased roast level, the texture of coffee beans becomes looser, and when ground into powder, they easily absorb more moisture and release more soluble substances, which can easily bring out unpleasant woody and other bitter flavors. FrontStreet Coffee's barista will adjust the grind to be coarser, making the coffee particles larger to reduce over-extraction. Here we use medium grind (Chinese standard 20-mesh sieve pass rate 70-75%).

Water Temperature: 87-88°C

When brewing light to medium roasted coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee will use higher temperatures to extract the aromatic substances from high-density coffee beans. However, medium-dark roasted Brazilian coffee has undergone longer caramelization reactions. If using the same high-temperature hot water, the coffee easily presents thick and burnt bitterness. Appropriately lowering the water temperature can help us reduce certain bitterness, so FrontStreet Coffee will use 87-88°C water temperature.

Coffee grounds will absorb about twice their weight in water. FrontStreet Coffee generally uses 15 grams of coffee grounds, extracting at a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, finally extracting close to 200ml of coffee liquid, which is 1-2 servings.

Brewing Parameters

• Dripper: KONO Dripper
• Water Temperature: 87-88°C
• Coffee Dose: 15 grams
• Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15
• Grind Size: Medium grind (Chinese standard 20-mesh sieve pass rate 70%)

Use twice the weight of coffee grounds in water to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome for 30 seconds of blooming, then use a small water stream to pour in circles from inside to outside until reaching 125g, then pause. When the coffee bed drops to half the height of the dripper, continue with the same fine water stream to pour the third stage to 225g, until all coffee liquid has filtered through, then remove the dripper. The total time is about 2 minutes.

The hand-poured Brazilian Queen Estate Farm coffee smells of lemon, nuts, and peanuts. On the palate, it presents very mellow nutty, dark chocolate, and caramel flavors with noticeable sweetness. The mouthfeel is as smooth as cream, and overall it's quite rounded.

Important Notice :

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