Costa Rican Coffee Varieties, Flavor Profiles, and Taste Introduction: How to Brew Honey-Processed Strictly Hard Coffee Beans?

Speaking of Costa Rican coffee beans, you've probably heard of them. At FrontStreet Coffee, there are quite a few Costa Rican coffee beans. Aside from the popular Musician Series from recent years, FrontStreet Coffee also has Blueberry from the Hacienda La Mula estate, and these coffee beans are basically all honey-processed. Generally, Central American countries like El Salvador and Costa Rica prefer these experimental coffee processing methods. Now, honey processing has become a common coffee processing method worldwide.

Common Coffee Processing Methods

Washed, natural, and honey processing are the three common processing methods. Before discussing these methods, FrontStreet Coffee will first help everyone understand the basic structure of coffee: skin, pulp, mucilage, parchment, and coffee fruit. After bean selection, natural processing involves spreading the coffee beans on drying patios for natural drying. The specific time depends on the climate, approximately 2-4 weeks until the coffee bean's moisture content drops to about 12%, at which point the coffee beans can be extracted using a huller. During the drying process, the coffee fully absorbs the essence of fructose, resulting in sweetness and body that are higher than washed coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that washed-processed coffee beans are the processing method that best reflects terroir characteristics among specialty coffees. After multiple steps including removing skin and pulp, water fermentation, washing mucilage, drying, and removing the inner parchment, washed coffee has excellent acidity and bright, clean flavors without impurities. Therefore, almost all of FrontStreet Coffee's daily selection beans are washed-processed, aiming to allow numerous coffee enthusiasts to purchase coffee with the most representative regional flavors at the most affordable prices. Even in Costa Rica, known for honey processing, FrontStreet Coffee still chose a washed Costa Rica Tarrazú coffee bean to add to its daily selection series. Here are the specific green bean details for this coffee:

FrontStreet Coffee: Costa Rica Tarrazú
Country: Costa Rica
Region: Tarrazú
Variety: Catuai, Caturra
Altitude: 1500m
Grade: SHB
Processing: Washed

Costa Rica Coffee Growing Regions

Today, FrontStreet Coffee will introduce Costa Rican coffee based on this particular coffee bean. Costa Rica is located in the Central American isthmus, influenced by the regulatory effects of Pacific and Atlantic ocean currents and sea winds on the climate. Within its territory, there are many towering volcanoes reaching altitudes of 2000 meters, allowing coffee cherries to grow slowly in fertile volcanic ash soil and high-altitude, cool environments, cultivating coffee beans with complete and rich flavors.

The earliest place coffee was cultivated in Costa Rica was on the slopes of the Poas and Barva volcanoes, an area today known as the Central Valley. After years of development, there are now eight main coffee cultivation areas, with soils consisting of several consecutive thick layers of volcanic ash and volcanic dust. These regions include: Tarrazu, West Valley, Central Valley, Tres Rios, Brunca, Guanacaste, Orosi, and Turrialba. Among these regions, coffee from Tarrazu and West Valley accounts for about half of Costa Rica's coffee production. Costa Rican Tarrazu coffee beans from the mountainous areas are acclaimed as some of the best coffee in the world.

Hacienda La Mula Blueberry Coffee

As we mentioned earlier, Costa Rica Tarrazú is just one of FrontStreet Coffee's daily selection products. The main highlight of Costa Rican coffee is actually honey-processed coffee beans. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will introduce another recently popular Hacienda La Mula Blueberry coffee bean.

Hacienda La Mula is located in the Brunca coffee region of southern Costa Rica. This region has diverse microclimates due to its mountainous terrain connecting to Panama. Stone carvings from indigenous peoples dating back to 200 BC to 1500 AD were excavated near this estate, called the "Mystery Stone Spheres," hence the estate was named "Hacienda La Mula" (Great Stone Estate).

FrontStreet Coffee: Costa Rica · Hacienda La Mula Blueberry Coffee Bean
Country: Costa Rica
Region: Brunca
Estate: Hacienda La Mula
Altitude: 1700-1800m
Processing: Anaerobic Double Honey
Variety: Bourbon, Catuai
Grade: SHB

Honey Processing Method

What exactly is honey processing? When the skin of the coffee cherry is removed, you'll see a transparent mucilage covering the coffee beans. Honey processing involves retaining this mucilage during the coffee drying process. During drying, the concentration of the mucilage increases, and the stored sugars and acids penetrate into the coffee beans. Compared to washed coffee, honey-processed coffee has higher flavor sweetness.

Costa Rican Coffee Grading Standards

Careful observers may have noticed that both of these coffees have SHB grade, which is already the highest grade for Costa Rican coffee. So how is Costa Rican coffee graded? In Costa Rica, green coffee beans are mainly graded by altitude, as altitude affects bean hardness. Higher altitude regions produce harder coffee beans, which are considered more desirable. FrontStreet Coffee has compiled the Costa Rican green coffee bean grading standards for everyone:

SHB (Strictly Hard Bean): Grown at altitudes of 1500-1700 meters;
HB (Hard Bean): Grown at altitudes of 1350-1500 meters;
SH (Semi-Hard Bean): Grown at altitudes of 1200-1350 meters;
Extra Prime (Extra Prime Washed): Grown at altitudes of 1000-1200 meters;
Prime (Prime Washed): Grown at altitudes of 850-1000 meters;
Good Washed: Grown at altitudes of 700-850 meters.

Here's a little knowledge from FrontStreet Coffee: although throughout the Americas, Costa Rica's high-altitude coffee cultivation is key to its excellent coffee flavor, another interesting fact that maintains Costa Rica's high-quality coffee standards is that producing Robusta coffee beans is illegal in Costa Rica.

FrontStreet Coffee Barista Brewing Recommendations

Considering this bean is a Costa Rican high-altitude SHB (Strictly Hard Bean), to extract the rich fruit layers of the coffee, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using higher water temperature and a finer grind. The harder the coffee bean texture, the finer the grind needed to increase the extraction surface area, thereby improving the extraction rate.

Filter: V60
Water Temperature: 90-91°C
Coffee Amount: 15g
Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15
Grind Size: Fine sugar size (sieve through #20 sieve to 82%)

Three-stage extraction: Pour the coffee grounds into the V60 filter, wet the coffee bed with twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds, bloom for 30s, then use a small water stream to pour from inside to outside in circles until reaching 125g for the first stage. Wait until the coffee bed drops to half the filter's height, then continue with the same fine water stream to pour the third stage until reaching 225g. Remove the filter when all coffee liquid has filtered through, taking approximately 2 minutes (with 10 seconds margin of error).

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473