How to Drink Antigua Flor de Café Coffee Beans - Correct Antigua Coffee Brewing Methods & Price Guide

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Introduction to Antigua Coffee Bean Growing Region

Guatemala is located in the Central American isthmus, with many high mountains and plateaus formed by volcanoes. It produces high-quality Central American high-altitude extremely hard coffee beans and is the 9th largest coffee bean producer in the world. The main coffee growing regions in Guatemala include Antigua, Huehuetenango, Atitlan, Coban, Fraijanes, Acatenango, and other seven major regions. When Guatemala has seven coffee-producing regions, all coffee beans produced are Arabica, located in highland terrain under subtropical climate, with abundant and stable rainfall, fertile volcanic ash soil, making various parts of the country have extremely suitable natural environmental conditions for coffee cultivation.

This valley is surrounded by three volcanoes: Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango. The volcanic ash from eruptions makes the soil in the Antigua region rich in minerals. Volcanic pumice can maintain humidity, overcoming the drawback of low rainfall in the Antigua region; dense tree shade can prevent occasional frost damage.

Characteristics: Rich wet aroma, good balance, high sweetness, and delicate body.

Each region has unique flavors, with excellent acidity and smooth fruit aromas, belonging to one of the world's top coffees, suitable for single-origin drinking. The Antigua region is located in the topographically mountainous area crossing Guatemala, mainly in the Madre plateau area. Due to the natural conditions of this region, Antigua has become Guatemala's most famous growing region.

Introduction to Antigua Coffee Estates

Flor de Café is a brand bean under La Minita Company, with growing region located in Antigua City, Guatemala, a highland surrounded by active volcanoes, with an altitude of 1850 meters, making it the country's most awarded and famous region.

Antigua has little rainfall in summer, and occasional frost in winter due to extreme cold, which actually is not suitable for coffee tree growth. However, fortunately located in the active volcanic zone, volcanic pumice that falls into the soil after eruptions cools down, and because these pumice stones have many fine pores, they are very good at moisture retention. Additionally, the large number of shade trees planted in the estate prevents coffee trees from suffering cold damage in winter. These factors that overcome adverse conditions, combined with large day-night temperature differences, create a unique microclimate in Antigua, giving coffee beans here a subtle smoky flavor and rich fruit aroma.

La Minita is famous for excellent cultivation, processing techniques, and extremely strict quality control. They commission Las Pastores, the largest wet processing plant in Antigua, to process the green beans according to these standards, and name the coffee beans Flor de Café. Besides preserving the original regional flavor, the dry aroma carries rich floral and tea notes. After tasting, lime acidity and berry flavors emerge, then transform into honey aftertaste. Excellent cleanliness and rich layered complexity are the characteristics of this Flor de Café.

La Minita Estate Coffee Cultivation

La Minita Estate does not use pesticides, and due to the climate and altitude advantages formed by the estate's geographical environment, these conditions limit the number of pests. A small number of pests do not cause significant damage to coffee trees. When the rainy season is about to end, coffee fruits will also ripen. Green fruits begin to turn red, but coffee fruit ripening is very slow and uneven, unlike flowering which is rapid and consistent. Therefore, harvesting work must be handled more carefully, only harvesting fully matured deep red fruits.

The fruits from one tree may be harvested up to 5 times depending on ripening conditions. The estate conducts soil testing twice a year to determine fertilization methods. La Minita Estate is very careful when using products that can increase yield, fertilizing about 3 times a year.

Additionally, applying trace elements such as zinc, boron, and copper can provide more nutrients to coffee trees and prevent diseases. Such scientific cultivation management has created the excellent flavor performance of Flor de Café and the reputation of consistent quality over the years. Following La Minita's famous gatekeeping procedures, strict supervision of Flor de Café from cultivation to packaging is maintained. These complex procedures are all to ensure that Pastores processing plant provides the best quality and strictly controls the estate's standard operating procedures.

The Antigua region itself is the most famous among Guatemala's seven regions, with high altitude, unique volcanic soil, and shade cultivation, making coffee beans from the Antigua area uniquely distinctive in regional flavor.

Processing Method

Full Washed

1. Removing Floating Beans: Pour coffee beans into a large water tank. Underdeveloped inferior beans will float to the surface, while mature, full fruits will sink to the bottom. At this time, scoop away the floating beans on the water surface to complete the step of removing floating beans.

2. Removing Skin and Pulp: Through a pulp screener, remove the outer skin and pulp of coffee fruits. (This leaves pectin, inner skin, and silver skin).

3. Fermentation: The purpose of this step is to use biological treatment methods to remove pectin. Coffee fruits processed by the pulp screener are placed in fermentation tanks for 16-36 hours, and fermentation bacteria will dissolve the pectin.

4. Washing: After completing fermentation and removing pectin, because fermentation bacteria and impurities will remain on the coffee beans, the beans are washed again. To clean thoroughly, this step consumes a large amount of clean water.

5. Drying and Removing Inner Skin and Silver Skin: Dry coffee fruits until moisture content drops to 10-14%. Then use a hulling machine to remove the remaining inner skin and silver skin to complete the processing.

Green Bean Analysis

Guatemala Flor de Café - Washed Processing

The varieties of Guatemala Flor de Café are mainly Bourbon, Caturra, and Catuai. Bourbon and Typica are listed together as ancient, high-quality coffee varieties. The bean appearance is smaller and rounder compared to Typica.

Caturra has a taste with lemon or citrus acidity. In terms of sweetness, it doesn't match Typica and Bourbon, because Caturra's sweetness is determined by the frequency and dosage of fertilization by growers. It has high yield capacity, but to maintain yield capacity, continuous fertilization and pruning are required, making the plants short with many branches. Although yield capacity increases, because the harvest period takes 2 years and care costs are high, production is still somewhat limited.

Roasting Analysis

This green coffee bean is plump, green with yellow tones, with relatively uniformity and medium moisture content. The roasting goal is medium roast,一方面 retaining bright acidity to showcase floral and fruit aromas, while enhancing richness and balance.

In the first batch of roasting, the dropping temperature was relatively high, with bean entry temperature at 200 degrees and relatively high heat. During the roasting process, it was found that this bean has high altitude and hard bean quality. To retain more acidic aroma, a technique of raising temperature development and advancing first crack was adopted. Heat was adjusted finer at the yellowing point, after dehydration completion, and before first crack to avoid bean surface scorching. The beans were dropped 1 minute 50 seconds after first crack completion, shortening caramelization reaction time to preserve more floral and fruit aftertaste.

Roaster: Yangjia 600g semi-direct flame

Heat furnace to 200 degrees Celsius, set damper to 3, adjust heat to 160 degrees after 30s, damper unchanged, return to temperature point at 1'36", maintain heat, at 4'50" seconds bean surface turns yellow, grassy smell completely disappears, entering dehydration stage, heat reduced to 140 degrees, damper adjusted to 4;

At 4'50" dehydration completed, heat reduced to 140 degrees, at 8'32" bean surface shows ugly wrinkles and black spots, toast smell obviously turns to coffee aroma, can be defined as prelude to first crack. At this time, listen carefully for the sound of first crack point, starting first crack at 8'37", reduce heat to 80 degrees, damper fully open to 5 (adjust heat must be very careful, cannot be so small that there's no crackling sound). After first crack, develop for 1'50", drop at 195.3 degrees.

This Guatemala Flor de Café washed has relatively obvious citrus acidity, with juicy acidity, rich floral aroma, pleasant sweetness, medium body, with slight caramel and smoky flavors in the aftertaste. Overall it's clean, mild, smooth in texture, with balanced and lively layered complexity.

Brewing Analysis

Recommended Brewing Method: Pour-over

Grind Size: (Japan Fuji R440) 3.5

V60 filter cup, 15g powder, water temperature 91 degrees

Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15

Segmentation: Small water flow injection to 125g, then stop water, slowly inject to 225g

Total Time: Approximately 1 minute 50 seconds

BG grinding 4R

Sweetness: ☆☆☆

Acidity: ☆☆☆

Bitterness: ☆

Other drip extraction suggestions: French press, recommended grind size 3.5-4, water temperature 91°C

AeroPress, recommended grind size 2.5, water temperature 90°C

Recommended Antigua Coffee Bean Brands

Guatemala Antigua coffee beans - Flor de Café roasted by FrontStreet Coffee have full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, the cost-performance ratio is extremely high, with a half-pound 227g package priced at only about 85 yuan. Calculated based on 15g powder per cup of single-origin coffee, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each cup costing only about 5-6 yuan. Compared to cafés selling tens of yuan per cup, this offers extremely high cost-performance ratio.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find various famous and lesser-known beans, while also providing online store services. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473