Guatemala Antigua Flor del Café Coffee Bean Flavor Profile and Processing Method - Is It Suitable for Drip Bag Coffee?

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When it comes to coffee with strong acidic flavors, FrontStreet Coffee would definitely recommend the Guatemala Antigua Flower Goddess coffee beans. This FrontStreet Coffee Flower Goddess coffee, just like its name, carries delicate floral notes with berry and citrus tones. Coffee enthusiasts who love acidic flavors have nothing but praise for this FrontStreet Coffee Antigua Flower Goddess coffee bean, with some even visiting FrontStreet Coffee's shop exclusively for this coffee bean for several consecutive weeks. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will elaborate on this coffee bean.

FrontStreet Coffee · Guatemala Antigua Flower Goddess Coffee

Country: Guatemala

Region: Antigua

Altitude: 1200m

Varieties: Bourbon, Caturra

Processing: Washed processing

Flavor: Berries, citrus, light floral notes, soft fruit acidity, chocolate aftertaste

Guatemala Coffee Bean Growing Environment and History

Coffee trees were introduced to Guatemala in 1750, and by 1845, coffee had become an important economic crop for Guatemala. Therefore, Guatemala's cultivation history can be considered very long-standing. FrontStreet Coffee believes this is also attributed to Guatemala's extremely suitable growing environment for high-quality coffee fruit development.

Furthermore, the country's coffee regions boast tropical rainforests, volcanic geology, highland valleys, and the proximity to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, creating over 300 microclimates, which in turn create unique flavors in each different region. For example, in the daily bean series launched by FrontStreet Coffee, there is a Guatemala Huehuetenango coffee. Although this bean shares berry and citrus flavors with FrontStreet Coffee's Antigua Flower Goddess, it presents more nut and lemon peel characteristics.

Guatemala has many mountains and plateaus formed by volcanoes, producing high-quality high-altitude hard beans. Major coffee-producing regions in Guatemala include Antigua, Huehuetenango, Atitlan, Coban, Fraijanes, San Marcos, and Acatenango.

FrontStreet Coffee's Guatemala Flower Goddess comes from the Antigua region. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will provide a detailed explanation of the Antigua region's characteristics!

Antigua Region Introduction

The Antigua region is said to be the birthplace of Guatemalan coffee. It is situated in a valley surrounded by three volcanoes (Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango). According to FrontStreet Coffee's understanding, Fuego is an active volcano that often erupts irregularly, causing the soil in this region to be rich in minerals. This is precisely what FrontStreet Coffee often refers to as volcanic soil rich in organic matter. Additionally, Antigua province retains large amounts of primary forest, which fills the soil with abundant potassium ions. The combination of rich organic matter and potassium ions provides coffee plants in the Antigua region with continuous nutrients for healthy growth.

Moreover, the climate here is very mild with stable humidity. Unlike other regions that experience extreme climate changes during the alternating dry and rainy seasons, this allows coffee to grow slowly in valleys above 1500 meters altitude. Because the Antigua region is an enclosed valley, it also prevents severe soil erosion. How could such a privileged environment not produce high-quality Antigua coffee beans? As for the quality of this FrontStreet Coffee Antigua Flower Goddess coffee bean, it goes without saying.

La Minita Estate

Of course, high-quality coffee beans must be processed and packaged by professional estates to avoid wasting excellent coffee fruit. This FrontStreet Coffee Antigua Flower Goddess comes from the famous coffee estate in Antigua – La Minita Estate.

La Minita Estate is renowned for its excellent cultivation practices and extremely strict quality management. Coffee bean processing is entrusted to Las Pastores, the largest wet processing plant in Antigua, for green bean processing. The coffee beans are named Flower Goddess because the washed processing method allows the coffee beans to maintain their original flavor, making the coffee taste very clean and bright. When this FrontStreet Coffee Flower Goddess coffee bean is ground into powder, its dry aroma carries rich floral and tea fragrances. After brewing, the taste is not only clean and bright but also has lime acidity and berry flavors, with a honey-sweet aftertaste. It is precisely this excellent flavor profile that led to this coffee bean being named Flower Goddess, which FrontStreet Coffee believes is well-deserved.

Additionally, La Minita never uses pesticides in cultivation. Due to the estate's climate and altitude limiting pest growth, and small amounts of pests do not cause significant damage to coffee trees. However, harvesting requires careful handling because when the rainy season ends at La Minita Estate, coffee fruits will subsequently ripen. Green fruits begin to turn red, but coffee fruit ripening is very slow and uneven, unlike the rapid and uniform flowering. Therefore, harvesting work must be handled more carefully. To ensure excellent quality, only fully matured deep red fruits are harvested within the estate.

Furthermore, according to FrontStreet Coffee's understanding, La Minita Estate conducts soil testing twice a year to ensure the soil quality for producing high-quality coffee beans, and La Minita fertilizes about 3 times a year. Additionally, La Minita applies micronutrient fertilizers such as zinc, boron, and copper to provide more nutrients to coffee trees and prevent diseases.

Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee believes it is precisely this scientific cultivation management that has created the excellent flavor performance of FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Goddess coffee and maintained consistent quality for years. This is why FrontStreet Coffee decided to introduce this FrontStreet Coffee Guatemala Antigua Flower Goddess for FrontStreet Coffee's coffee enthusiast friends to taste.

Washed Processing Method

Of course, FrontStreet Coffee believes that the Las Pastores wet processing plant also deserves credit for the excellent flavor of this FrontStreet Coffee Flower Goddess coffee bean. The washed processing method is an extremely complex processing method that requires numerous steps and large amounts of water to achieve high-quality results. Professional handling is necessary to ensure coffee beans have no off-flavors and become bright and clean in taste with excellent flavor. This is why FrontStreet Coffee often says that washed processing coffee beans are the processing method that best reflects a region's original coffee fruit flavor, while also serving as an introduction to a region's flavor profile.

Washed Processing Method Steps

1. First, coffee farmers pour all harvested coffee fruits into water. This way, poor-quality defective coffee beans will float to the surface, while those sinking to the bottom are quality-approved coffee fruits. This operation significantly reduces the time wasted in individual selection.

2. The selected coffee fruits are placed in a pulping machine to remove the outer skin and pulp. After removing these, the surface of the coffee fruit still has a layer of mucilage attached, so large amounts of clean water must be used to wash away the adhesive substances on the coffee fruit surface.

3. Next, fermentation is used to completely remove the mucilage. This process takes approximately 18 hours. After fermentation is complete, fermentation bacteria adhere to the coffee fruit surface, so another wash with large amounts of clean water is needed. For this step, producing 1 kilogram of coffee beans requires consuming 40 to 50 kilograms of clean water. FrontStreet Coffee considers this a very large number, which is also why drought-prone countries cannot adopt washed processing.

4. The cleaned coffee beans can undergo drying. Some regions will directly take them outdoors for air drying, while more developed regions will send them to processing plants for machine drying, reducing coffee moisture content to around 11%.

5. Finally, the dried coffee beans are stored and packaged for sale and export.

FrontStreet Coffee · Guatemala Antigua Flower Goddess Coffee Varieties

Of course, FrontStreet Coffee's previous articles have mentioned that an excellent, flavorful coffee bean depends not only on its region and processing method but also on coffee varieties. For example, all single-origin coffees are Arabica species, and under Arabica coffee, there are many varieties. For instance, this FrontStreet Coffee Antigua Flower Goddess is made of Caturra and Bourbon variety coffee beans. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will briefly introduce these two varieties.

Bourbon

It is a subspecies produced by Typica mutation and belongs to the oldest existing Arabica coffee varieties along with Typica. Its green fruits turn bright red when mature. Compared to Typica, Bourbon plants have broader leaves and grow more densely. Although the yield is higher than Typica, the harvest period is still 2 years, making it a low-yield variety. However, it has excellent quality taste with wine-like acidity and sweet aftertaste.

Caturra

Caturra is a single-gene variant of Bourbon discovered in Brazil in 1937. Its production capacity and disease resistance are both better than Bourbon, and the plant is shorter, making harvesting convenient. Unfortunately, like Bourbon, it also has a biennial production cycle problem. However, its flavor is comparable to or slightly inferior to Bourbon beans. More importantly, it has extremely strong adaptability, growing vigorously even in direct sunlight without shade trees, commonly known as sun coffee. It can adapt to high-density planting but requires more fertilization, increasing costs, so initial farmer acceptance was not high.

The above is the relevant information about FrontStreet Coffee's Guatemala Antigua Flower Goddess coffee bean compiled by FrontStreet Coffee. It is hoped that this article will help coffee enthusiast friends better understand this coffee bean. Whenever FrontStreet Coffee launches a new coffee bean, extensive brewing evaluations are conducted, taking the optimal flavor parameters to brew for coffee enthusiast friends visiting FrontStreet Coffee's shop. Therefore, this FrontStreet Coffee Guatemala Antigua Flower Goddess coffee bean is no exception. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will share the brewing parameters for this FrontStreet Coffee Flower Goddess coffee bean.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Suggestions

This FrontStreet Coffee Guatemala Flower Goddess green coffee bean is round, green with yellow tones, with relatively good uniformity and medium moisture content. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee's roaster aims for medium roasting – on one hand, preserving bright acidity to showcase floral and fruit aromas, and on the other hand, enhancing richness and balance.

Roasting Machine: Yang Family 600g Semi-direct Fire

Set drum temperature to 200°C at charge, damper at 3. After 30 seconds, reduce heat to 160°C, damper unchanged. Return to temperature at 1'36". Maintain heat. At 4'50", bean surface turns yellow, grassy smell completely disappears, entering dehydration phase. Reduce heat to 140°C, adjust damper to 4.

At 4'50", dehydration complete, reduce heat to 140°C. At 8'32", bean surface shows ugly wrinkles and black spots, toast smell clearly turns to coffee aroma – this can be defined as prelude to first crack. At this point, listen carefully for first crack sound. First crack begins at 8'37", reduce heat to 80°C, fully open damper to 5 (adjust heat very carefully, not too low to stop crack sounds). Develop for 1'50" after first crack, discharge at 195.3°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Cupping Report

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Suggestions

Dripper: V60

Dose: 15 grams

Ratio: 1:15

Temperature: 90°C

Grind: BG#6S

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Method

Segmented extraction.

30g water bloom for 30 seconds, pour water to 125g for segmentation. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper. (Timing starts from bloom) Extraction time is two minutes.

Flavor Description

Floral notes, citrus acidity, caramel, slight smoky flavor

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Important Notice :

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