How to Make Colombian Emerald Estate Iced Pour-Over Coffee & How to Drink Colombian Pour-Over Coffee

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Colombia: The Land of Coffee

Located in the northwestern part of South America, Colombia is a beautiful country with a long history. From ancient times, indigenous people have thrived on this land. In 1531 AD, it became a Spanish colony and gained independence in 1819. In 1886, it was renamed to its current name to commemorate Columbus, the discoverer of the American continent.

Colombia boasts beautiful mountains and rivers, picturesque scenery, pleasant climate, spring-like seasons throughout the year, and fresh air. Colombia is rich in natural resources, with coffee, flowers, gold, and emeralds being known as the "four treasures." Today, the country is the second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, the world's largest exporter of Arabica coffee beans, and the world's largest exporter of washed coffee beans.

Colombian coffee is often described as having a silky smooth texture. Among all coffees, it has the best balance, with a soft and smooth taste that can be enjoyed anytime. It has received praise unattainable by other coffees: it is known as "green gold."

Before the 1990s, due to domestic political instability and rampant drug cultivation, Colombia once became synonymous with a haven for drug lords. Especially after being portrayed in Hollywood films, Colombia seemed to have the same status as the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia.

In fact, during the era of Greater Colombia, half of South America was under Colombian rule, and its culture and history have always been closely linked to coffee.

01 | Colombia's Planting History

The history of coffee cultivation in Colombia can be traced back to the Spanish colonial era in the 16th century. There are many stories about coffee's history in Colombia:

One theory suggests that coffee was introduced by sea from Haiti in the Caribbean Sea, through El Salvador in Central America.

Another theory states that in 1808, a priest introduced coffee beans to Colombia for the first time from the French Antilles via Venezuela. One version suggests that Colombia's first batch of coffee seeds entered through Santander Province from Venezuela.

A third theory mentions that the earliest record of coffee cultivation in Colombia appeared in a book titled "The Illustrated Orinoca" by Spanish missionary Jose Gumilla. He described his experiences while preaching along both banks of the Meta River in 1730, mentioning local coffee plantations. By 1787, other missionaries had spread coffee to other parts of Colombia.

02 | Main Coffee Varieties

As we all know, coffee has two main varieties: Arabica and Robusta, which are like two races with different beliefs that have always been incompatible. Colombian coffee varieties are mainly small-grained Arabica types such as Caturra, Bourbon, Catuai, Typica, and Colombia, with a few regions growing other varieties.

These Colombian coffee plants are typically small trees, often pruned to a height of about one person for easy manual harvesting. During the coffee flowering season, several cymes cluster in the leaf axils, with each inflorescence having 2-5 flowers, either without peduncles or with very short ones. The coffee flowers are richly aromatic, much like jasmine or gardenia. Normally, coffee fruits are oval-shaped with red skin. A few varieties mutate under specific conditions to produce yellow fruits, which through seed selection, become separate sub-varieties, such as Yellow Bourbon and Pink Bourbon.

It's worth mentioning that the Colombia variety here is actually Catimor, which is disliked by many in the coffee industry due to its high yield and strong disease resistance. In recent years, it has gradually become the main force of Colombian coffee.

Many people new to coffee often overemphasize coffee varieties, which is actually unscientific. The flavor of a cup of coffee is based on the coffee beans themselves. However, coffee beans are not just about variety; their growing environment and processing methods also affect the final taste in the cup.

03 | Coffee Growing Environment

Colombia's suitable climate provides a true Eden for coffee. Colombia's coffee trees are mainly cultivated on steep slopes at around 1,300 meters altitude in the Andes Mountains, between north latitude 1°-11°15' and west longitude 72°-78°. There, the annual average temperature is approximately 18°C, with annual rainfall between 2,000 to 3,000 millimeters. The altitude range can exceed 2,000 meters. This natural combination of characteristic factors, combined with scientific guidance from the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation for coffee farmers in planting, harvesting, and processing, has created high-quality Colombian coffee.

In Colombia, the coffee cultivation area reaches 1.07 million hectares, with about 302,000 coffee farms nationwide. 30% to 40% of the rural population depends directly on coffee production for their livelihood. Although Colombia has many farms, they are not large in area. Each farm is only about 2 hectares, and over 80% of coffee plantations have only about 5,000 coffee trees, with an average of 3,000. Locals plant tall mango trees, banana trees, or other trees with wide canopies around the coffee trees, and even set up shade sheds during the coffee seedling stage to ensure the cool and humid environment needed for coffee growth. In Colombian coffee growing areas, due to high humidity and small temperature differences in coffee forests, coffee beans mature slowly, which is beneficial for the accumulation of caffeine and aromatic substances.

During the coffee fruit maturation season, coffee farmers lead mules up the mountains to manually harvest coffee beans (also known as coffee cherries). They manually screen the harvested fruits, carefully selecting the most mature and plump ones. Most Colombian coffee beans use washed processing. After medium roasting, they have a light and silky taste, sometimes with a hint of green apple acidity. Therefore, the image of coffee farmer Uncle Juan leading mules to carry coffee fruits has become the promotional image for Colombia.

04 | Quality and Grades

In terms of both yield and quality, Medellin is the foremost coffee-producing region in Colombia. Its characteristics are full-bodied coffee beans, rich nutrition, moderate acidity, good balance, rich aroma, and soft, smooth taste. Besides Medellin, the capital cities of two neighboring southern provinces, Armenia and Manizales, are also famous coffee-producing areas.

Colombian beans are graded with Supremo as the highest grade, followed by Excelso. However, only Supremo-grade coffee of 18 screen size or above can be classified as specialty coffee. Currently, many small estate micro-batch coffees on the market have refined processing and small yields, plus they participate in cupping competitions organized by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation each year, thus gaining higher market value. Examples include Pink Lady and Mercedes Estate Caturra.

05 | Flavor Characteristics

If coffees around the world are classified by flavor, they can be divided into two main categories: one is the "hard" coffee represented by Brazil, with mellow and intense flavor; the other is the "soft" coffee represented by Colombia, with light fragrance and elegance.

Each coffee has its own strong flavor characteristics due to different varieties, origins, and processing methods. Just like a person's character, Mandheling is masculine and intense, with a character like a steel man; Blue Mountain coffee, with its mellow and fragrant taste, is like a gentle and pure woman. Colombian coffee is most suitable for those who are casual and prefer light flavors. While one doesn't need to treat drinking coffee as formally as a religion, seeking profound life philosophy between sour, sweet, and bitter, one can still gain rich sensory experiences and inner peace and satisfaction after simply drinking a cup of warm coffee. Colombian coffee's silky smooth texture, bright high-quality acidity, first sour then sweet, light bitterness with long-lasting fragrance, rich and thick, leaves an endless aftertaste, instantly making one feel the sweetness and warmth of life.

06 | Export Management

Colombia's coffee trade export management is mainly handled by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation. It is a non-governmental industry organization with several government ministers serving as committee members. Colombian law clearly stipulates that only private merchants with licenses from this federation can export coffee, aiming to maintain Colombia's coffee image worldwide while ensuring the government obtains stable fiscal revenue from coffee trade.

Currently, the federation is actively promoting Colombian coffee products and cultural image in the Greater China region. Its representative office is located in Shanghai, headed by Mr. Wu Jiahang, a Chinese man who has lived in Colombia for a long time.

07 | Coffee Culture

Among the things Colombians most love to talk about are probably soccer, coffee, and beautiful women. In many coffee-producing countries internationally, ordinary people actually don't drink much coffee. Colombia is an exception. In cities like Bogotá, drinking coffee is part of daily leisure life for locals. Streets and alleys are filled with coffee shops, bustling with customers from morning to night.

At the University of Antioquia, each office has a small sign that reads "Coffee Time." If the owner is temporarily away, they will likely hang this sign on the door. This reason seems perfectly natural, even for office-based administrative staff. In any restaurant in Medellin, the free beverage served to customers after their meal is coffee.

Coffee is so deeply ingrained in Colombia that in many works by Nobel Prize winner and famous Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, coffee is an indispensable writing material. In "One Hundred Years of Solitude," which won him the Nobel Prize, almost every chapter contains descriptions of coffee. In "No One Writes to the Colonel," said to be García Márquez's personal favorite novel, he portrays the image of a poor and destitute retired officer. From the beginning, readers can feel this predicament: "The colonel opened the coffee box and found that there was indeed only one small spoon of coffee left..."

In the era when Starbucks swept the world, coffee carried the strong export of American culture, and it is said that only Spanish-speaking countries south of Mexico have no Starbucks. However, the Colombian coffee brand chain "JUAN VALDEZ" with its highly conspicuous mule-carried coffee logo is found in almost all large and medium-sized cities in South America.

How to Brew Colombian Coffee [Emerald Estate] Well?

FrontStreet Coffee pour-over reference: Weigh 15g of [Emerald Estate] coffee powder, pour into a grinder for medium grinding. The ground particles should be slightly coarser than salt. We use BG grinder setting 5R (standard sieve pass rate 60%), water temperature 89°C, extracted with V60 dripper, recommended powder-to-water ratio of about 1:15.

Hot water from the pour-over kettle should circle clockwise with the filter cup as the center. Start timing when brewing begins. In 15 seconds, brew the coffee to 30g, then stop pouring water. When the time reaches 1 minute, pour water for the second time. For the second pour, like before, circle clockwise with the filter cup as the center. The water flow should not hit where the coffee powder meets the filter paper to avoid channel effects.

Leave a circle when brewing coffee powder to the outermost edge, then circle back toward the center. At 2 minutes and 20 seconds, the coffee should be brewed to 220g. The coffee brewing is complete.

Japanese-style Ice Pour-over [Emerald Estate]

FrontStreet Coffee ice pour-over [Emerald Estate] reference:

Colombian coffee [Emerald Estate], light-medium roast, BG grinder setting 5M (standard sieve pass rate 67%)

20g powder, 150g ice, 150g hot water. Water temperature is 1°C higher than the normal pour-over recommendation of 90°C. Normal grinding uses Fuji 3.5 setting, while ice pour-over uses slightly finer by half a setting - Fuji 3 setting. Recommended powder-to-(water+ice) ratio of 1:15.

Bloom with 40g water for 30 seconds.

Segmented pouring: first segment 60g water, second segment 40g water. Used a relatively fine but high pour water column, stirring forcefully to make the coffee powder fully tumble, but attention should be paid to keep the liquid level not too high and not hit the edge filter paper.

The entire extraction time is approximately 2.5 minutes (close to the normal extraction time for 20g powder).

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