Brazilian Coffee Bean Grading and Flavor Profiles: How to Brew Red Bourbon Coffee

As a major coffee-producing nation, Brazil is also the world's second-largest coffee consumer (the first being the United States). Brazilian coffee beans influence global coffee prices. Particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Brazil's coffee harvesting progress once slowed down. Coupled with tight shipping schedules, Arabica coffee futures soared.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that the greatest characteristic of Brazilian coffee beans is their large production volume and stable flavor. This is inseparable from Brazil's flat plateau terrain, which allows for mechanized operations. Brazilian coffee cultivation generally occurs at low altitudes, around 1,000 meters, making it difficult to rank among specialty coffees. Therefore, it is often exported as a bulk commodity.

However, Brazil is not without some specialty estates. These estates are different from large farms; they pursue coffee flavor more passionately. As the country of origin for the Cup of Excellence (COE), Brazil focuses on both quality and quantity of coffee. The two Brazilian coffee beans from FrontStreet Coffee correspond to these two priorities: one representing the flavor of Brazil's basic producing regions—FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Cerrado coffee beans; the other representing specialty estates—FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Cerrado Coffee Beans

FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Cerrado coffee beans are listed as part of FrontStreet Coffee's daily brew series. The original intention behind launching the daily brew series was to allow more friends who want to get into coffee to taste coffee from various specialty regions at a relatively low price. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee seeks coffee beans from around the world that have local regional flavors. These coffee beans must have excellent flavors and affordable prices.

Cerrado is a high-quality Arabica coffee-producing region in Brazil with flat terrain and an altitude of around 1,000m. It is Brazil's most advanced mechanized cultivation area, primarily growing Red Bourbon coffee. Red Bourbon coffee is a pure and ancient Arabica coffee variety, characterized by a solid mouthfeel, high-quality acidity, and wine-like aroma in terms of flavor. In processing, the Cerrado region adopts a locally appropriate semi-dry processing method, which greatly reduces the defect rate and improves overall coffee quality. Therefore, we can taste a very clean mouthfeel in this FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Cerrado coffee bean, with flavors of chocolate and peanuts, and a caramel-like aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon Coffee Beans

FrontStreet Coffee's other Brazilian coffee bean comes from the famous COE-winning Queen Estate, located in the Mogiana region. This region is dominated by small and medium-sized individual estates, primarily producing high-quality, flavorful coffee. Queen Estate features Yellow Bourbon coffee, which accounts for 30% of its annual production. Yellow Bourbon is a variety of Red Bourbon, named for its yellow color when ripe. In terms of flavor, Yellow Bourbon has better fruit acidity and aroma than Red Bourbon.

For this FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Yellow Bourbon coffee bean, Queen Estate adopts refined natural processing. This differs from the natural processing in Brazil's large producing regions by using the standards of various specialty estates, with strict control over the drying degree of coffee beans and management processes. When drinking this FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Queen Estate coffee, we will experience very high sucrose sweetness, as well as a balanced flavor of dark chocolate and nuts.

Brazilian Coffee Bean Grades

Among the many coffee-growing countries in Central and South America, Brazil has relatively low altitudes. Therefore, Brazil does not emphasize hard beans that can only grow in high-altitude areas like Colombia and other countries. Instead, Brazilian coffee bean grades are classified based on four criteria: particle size, defect rate, cupping score, and flavor.

Flavor Grade Classification

From high to low: Strictly Soft, Soft, Softish, Hardish, Rioy.

Defect Rate Classification

Classified by the number of defective beans: in every 300g of raw beans, 6 defective beans constitute NY.2. Completely defect-free beans can become NY.1, but completely defect-free beans are rare and cannot maintain a certain supply volume. Therefore, among Brazil's raw beans, the best is NY.2.

Cupping Quality Classification

From high to low: Fine Cup, Fine, Good Cup, Fair Cup, Poor Cup, Bad Cup. FC (Fine Cup) and GC (Good Cup) are more common.

Particle Size Classification

The largest mesh size for Brazilian coffee beans is 19, but production is limited. Therefore, 17 and 18 mesh are considered the highest grades.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee believes that Brazilian coffee beans have the characteristic balance of South American producing regions. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium roasting for Brazilian coffee beans, appropriately extending the caramelization reaction at the development stage to maximize the conversion of acidic substances into sweetness. During the roasting process, heat is adjusted in small increments with slow temperature rise, making the color values of the coffee bean surface and core similar, ensuring balance.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Recommendations

Brewing Parameters

Use Kono dripper, 88℃ water temperature, 15g coffee dose, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, medium-fine grind (80% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)

For darker roasted Brazilian coffee beans to highlight their richness, FrontStreet Coffee chooses the Kono dripper for brewing. The characteristic of the Kono dripper is its immersion function, which can extract more coffee substances through immersion, enhancing the rich mouthfeel. Because its ribs are few and located at the bottom, it allows the filter paper to closely adhere to the dripper to achieve the effect of restricting airflow, thereby slowing water flow and increasing water-coffee contact time. Incidentally, the Kono dripper is not only suitable for brewing the darker roasted FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Queen Estate but also suitable for brewing medium-dark roasted coffee beans such as FrontStreet Coffee Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 and FrontStreet Coffee PWN Golden Mandheling.

A water temperature of 88℃ is chosen as a relatively low brewing temperature to avoid extracting too many undesirable flavors from the coffee beans during the brewing process, because the darker the roast degree of coffee beans, the more undesirable flavors will increase.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Technique

Adopting segmented extraction: 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, then continue pouring in small circular motions to 125g in segments. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. (Timing starts from the bloom) Extraction time is 2 minutes. The brewing technique for both beans should be kept as consistent as possible.

Brazilian Coffee Bean Flavor Descriptions

FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Queen Estate Coffee Beans: Prominent chocolate and nutty flavors, with floral and spice aromas, caramel sweetness, Pu-erh tea aftertaste, overall relatively rich and smooth mouthfeel, balanced flavor.

FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Cerrado Coffee Beans: Obvious sweetness on entry, with a faint lemon aroma, containing rich nutty flavors, with obvious dark chocolate flavors in the later stage, overall feeling relatively round.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473