Pour-Over Washed Costa Rica Beethoven Coffee - How to Brew Musician Series Costa Rica Coffee

Costa Rican coffee stands out in the Americas largely because of its honey processing, which delivers balanced sweet-sour notes and smooth, sweet flavors that set it clearly apart from both fully washed and natural coffees. Within Costa Rica there is an estate that grows something other than coffee as its main crop, yet has become world-famous for its coffee. Follow FrontStreet Coffee to learn the story behind it.

Canet Musician Series

CANET

Canet sits in the highest-altitude area of Costa Rica's Tarrazu growing region, which is also the country's most intensive fruit-growing zone. The estate owner primarily grows passion fruit, and coffee is comparatively rare here—only a specific area is planted, receiving special care and picking limited to fully mature red cherries. The estate's signature variety is Yellow Catuai.

Costa Rican coffee belongs to the vibrant, captivating flavor family: rich floral and fruity acidity, with a wind-chime-like clarity and lingering brightness that is especially classic. Coffee grown at high altitude develops more sweetness, and because nighttime temperatures are lower, the cherries ripen slowly and concentrate their flavors. Long daylight hours also build beautiful acidity. Beyond the regional microclimate, this of course also reflects the varieties and post-harvest processing. The Dota region has all of the above, and it is defined by its acidity and enchanting floral and fruit aromas.

Coffees from the Musician Series have always been extremely popular, winning fans with distinctive processing and flavor expression. Their taste and flavor signature is highly recognizable—remarkable even next to the fashionable Geisha variety. Green bean prices have climbed steadily, a clear sign of how much people love these special flavors.

Basic Information about Beethoven

Region: Tarrazu, Costa Rica

Estate: Canet Estate

Altitude: 1900m

Variety: Yellow Catuai

Processing: washed

Yellow Catuai comes from a cross between Mundo Novo and Caturra, first cultivated by Brazil's "Instituto Agronômico de Campinas" in 1949. It offers delicate, clean acidity.

Unlike its siblings in the Musician Series, the Beethoven lot is fully washed. After harvesting, the cherries are screened again to remove underripe or overripe fruit, then pulped; a centrifugal washing machine strips the mucilage from the beans to avoid fermentation. The beans are then rinsed in clean water and dried on shaded raised beds for 12-14 days, turned constantly for even drying. Washed coffee like this tastes cleaner and brighter.

Roasting Profile

Cupping Notes

Brewing Tutorial

Hand Brew Parameter Suggestions:

1. Start with 25g of water for a 30-second bloom, letting the coffee bed fully absorb water and release its gases;

2. Second pour to 120g: pour from a moderate height with a small, slow water flow, moving in gentle circles—an immersion-style approach that lets the grounds release their good substances while disturbing the coffee bed as little as possible;

3. Third pour to 225g: once the water level has dropped by about 1/3, pour again up to 225g. At this point the level falls slowly, a sign that fine particles are settling at the bottom of the cone. Slightly increase the flow and the speed of your circles to lift the fines and avoid over-extraction and bitter flavors. Total extraction time is 1 minute 56 seconds.

Flavor Description

The wet aroma carries floral notes and the fragrance of ripe papaya. The entry shows berry acidity, then papaya sweetness fills the mid-palate with a juice-like mouthfeel. The aftertaste lingers on brown sugar and honeydew melon. Overall balance is high, with a sweet, colorful fruity tonality.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Costa Rica's Musician Series shines in a V60, and FrontStreet's shelf holds other floral-fruity lots that love the same fast, aromatic extraction. FrontStreet Mozart, from honey-process-famous Costa Rica, uses a distinctive raisin-honey process—dried fruit, ripe pineapple, and sweet orange notes, with an enchanting osmanthus fragrance that blooms as hot water hits the bed; it is superb as an iced pour-over or cold brew. FrontStreet Natural Huakui brings prominent tropical fruit—strawberry, passion fruit, jackfruit, even lychee—with clear sweetness and almost no bitterness, a coffee for people who think they don't like coffee. And FrontStreet Guodingding Cooperative Yirgacheffe offers citrus, berry, and white-floral lift with a green-tea sweetness—a classic starting point for anyone new to pour-over.