Flora de Antigua Region | Bella Carmona Estate | Washed Bourbon, Caturra SHB EP Grade Flavor

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La Flor de Antigua Region | Bella Carmona Estate | How is the Flavor of Washed Bourbon, Caturra SHB EP Grade?

The Antigua region is surrounded by three volcanoes. The planting area of Bella Carmona Estate is located on the southern slope of Agua Volcano, with geology consisting of well-drained, fertile volcanic soil. Annual rainfall ranges from 1800mm to 2300mm, with hot days and cool, dry nights, creating a large temperature difference between day and night - an ideal microclimate environment for producing excellent coffee. The estate grows Bourbon, Typica, and Caturra varieties of coffee, with coffee plants growing under shade to receive appropriate sunlight. This La Flor coffee comes from Bella Carmona Estate, using traditional washing and sun-drying on raised beds. The grade is SHB, with a growing altitude of 1500-1650 meters, and varieties include Caturra and Bourbon. Quality control begins with the selection of planted varieties and continues with strict supervision throughout the green bean processing to ensure only the best products are exported.

All coffee production processes are conducted considering sustainable operations and environmentally friendly ecosystems. Not only is all coffee shade-grown, but there's also special emphasis on developing eco-friendly washing facilities; wastewater used during washing is directed to sedimentation tanks, allowing waste from the process to decompose and serve as fertilizer. Ripe red coffee cherries are picked and transported to washing stations or processing plants. After the coffee fruit is depulped, fermented in washing tanks, and thoroughly cleaned, it's sent to raised beds for sun-drying. When the moisture content of parchment beans is reduced to the appropriate level, they are carefully bagged and sent to warehouses for continued aging until reaching optimal flavor balance, at which point hulling is performed and preparation for export begins. The hulling plant is located within the estate to completely monitor the entire processing process and ensure the best quality. The combination of volcanic soil, balanced rainfall and sunshine, and traditional farming methods produces coffee with rich flavors, thick texture, crisp acidity, and excellent balance.

Before entering the so-called Bella Carmona Estate, there's a Bella Vista processing plant sign on the right side of the entrance to welcome visitors. The occasional sound of birdsong and picturesque jungle scenery make one want to stay in this jungle-like coffee garden for several more days to fully absorb the phytoncides here!

This village is surrounded by three volcanoes: Fuego, Agua, and Acatenango. The recent Guatemala volcanic eruption was Fuego Volcano, located near the Antigua and Acatenango regions, with countless casualties. Growing coffee around such active volcanoes requires considerable courage. The estate soil possesses rich volcanic soil, making it very suitable for coffee cultivation. Who would have thought that this beautiful estate and processing plant, now so stunning, was once devastated by volcanic ash from eruptions to the point of being unusable? After long periods of gradual reconstruction until now, looking around one can see the estate planning is quite clean and tidy. When you're at this processing plant, you won't see messy pipelines everywhere because they're all underground, using water to transport coffee fruit to the other end for depulping, washing, and other processing.

La Folie in French carries the meaning of strong floral fragrance and "flower goddess." Inside the estate, there's also a high-end cabin. Below the cabin, there's a storage tank specifically for receiving coffee cherries, where workers unload bags of red coffee cherries from trucks and pour them into the storage tank for storage.

Coming to their planned coffee cherry drying field, it looks like golden terraces from a distance. Each small golden field has its own exclusive label, and dedicated patrol personnel continuously record the current drying temperature. If the temperature in a certain area exceeds a certain standard, the parchment coffee beans will be moved to places with appropriate temperatures to continue turning and drying. Watching workers continuously turn with rakes, this action allows the coffee cherries to dry more evenly. In the distance, there's a greenhouse frame drying 'golden house' under construction and expansion. This golden house is full of golden parchment beans, each drying rack is custom-made, each weighing 20-30 kilograms. Each turning requires two people working together to change layers to complete. Each row has 6 levels high. Freshly depulped, washed, and fermented coffee is first placed on the bottom layer, then continuously placed upward until the top layer is dried to appropriate moisture, then it can be packaged and stored separately. The estate continuously introduces various varieties to enhance flavors, and this time is no exception - bringing such good things back to Taiwan for everyone to taste.

Variety: Bourbon, Caturra

Grade: SHB EP

Region: Antigua Region

Altitude: 1,600 - 1,800 m

Processing Method: Washed

Reference Flavor: Strong floral aroma, caramel, lemon taste, sweet aftertaste

Specifications:

SHB EP / Washed

Recommended Brewing:

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 90°C

Grind Size: Fuji Mini Mill grind size 3.5

Brewing Method: Water to coffee ratio 1:15, 15g coffee grounds. First pour 25g water for 25s bloom. Second pour to 120g water, stop pouring, wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to half, then continue pouring slowly until reaching 225g water. Extraction time around 2:00

Analysis: Using three-stage brewing to clearly distinguish the front, middle, and back-end flavors of the coffee. Because V60 has many ribs and faster drainage, stopping the pour can extend the extraction time.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473