How to Brew Brazilian Coffee Beans? Are Brazilian Coffee Beans Expensive? What's the Cost of Brazilian Coffee?

Brazilian Honey Process Coffee Beans

When it comes to the natural processing method, Brazil has the most extensive application. The drawback of the natural method is that it's prone to mixing defective beans, and there's significant variation in appearance between beans.

Dry processing (secado), also known as the full natural method.

The natural method is one of the coffee cherry processing techniques. After harvesting coffee cherries, they are spread on drying patios for 3-4 weeks, turned evenly several times daily to ensure uniform heating. After drying, the coffee bean separates from the outer skin, and then hulling machines remove the pulp and skin before sorting completes the process.

There are two fermentation methods: wet fermentation and dry fermentation. As the names suggest, the former adds water while the latter doesn't. During fermentation, the seeds and internal pulp undergo special changes, which is the most flavor-influencing step in the washed process. After washing, the coffee beans remain in the parchment with 50% moisture content and must be dried to reduce moisture to 12%, otherwise they will continue to ferment and become moldy and spoiled. The better processing method is sun-drying, which takes 1-3 weeks but produces exceptional flavor that's highly appreciated. Some places use machine drying to significantly reduce processing time, but the flavor doesn't match that of sun-dried coffee.

Brazilian coffee plantations stretch endlessly, mostly using mechanical harvesting for economic efficiency. When 75% of coffee cherries turn red in the plantation, mechanical harvesting begins. Then follows the same preprocessing as washing: moving to water tanks to remove floating beans, filtering out sinking beans, and using large pulp separators to remove pulp, extracting mucilage-covered coffee pods. The next stage diverges from the washing method: the sticky pods don't go to fermentation tanks but are moved to outdoor drying patios. Due to Brazil's dry climate, the sticky mucilage on the pods hardens in about a day.

Large numbers of workers then turn the pods up and down to ensure uniform drying inside and out, preventing moisture absorption and odor. About two to three days of sunlight and dry climate help the pods achieve a certain degree of dehydration. Then dryers further reduce moisture content to 10.5-12%, after which the pods are stored in special containers for about ten days for further maturation to ensure quality stability. Before export, the parchment (pods) is removed to extract coffee beans for grading and packaging. The mucilage adheres strongly and isn't easy to remove; it must be placed in tanks for about 18-36 hours to ferment and decompose the mucilage.

After harvesting, coffee cherries are dried directly in the sun. Depending on weather conditions, this usually takes 1-2 weeks to reduce coffee bean moisture content to 10%-12%. Then machines remove the dried fruit skin and pulp. Processing plants (beneficios) generally keep the parchment shell on the coffee beans during storage until just before export (Costa Rican law requires green coffee exports to be parchment-free). This processing method requires abundant sunshine in the producing region.

Brewing Reference: Volcano Pour-Over

For pour-over Brazilian coffee beans, recommend 18g of coffee, 90°C water temperature, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, Fuji grinder setting 4.5, V60 dripper. First pour 30g of water for 28s bloom, then continuous slow pouring until reaching 300g. Avoid the tail section. Extraction time: 2:20-2:30 seconds.

Brazilian Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted Brazilian coffee beans offer full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer exceptional value - a 227-gram box costs only 45 yuan. Calculating at 15g per cup, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, costing only about 3 yuan per cup. Compared to café prices that often run dozens of yuan per cup, this is truly a conscientious recommendation.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473