How to Make Pour-Over Iced Coffee from Nabusimake Village, Cesar Department, Colombia_Pour-Over Colombian Iced Coffee

Colombia has always been an astonishing coffee-producing nation, spanning both the northern and southern hemispheres. Three main ranges, the Western, Central, and Eastern Cordilleras, divide the land into a patchwork of valleys and hills. Volcanic ash soil and abundant rainfall give rise to a wide range of unique microclimates. The rain brought by the monsoon is the single most important factor in Colombia's coffee harvest. Leaving aside the southernmost Nariño province (May-August) and the northernmost Cesar province (November-January), every other coffee region in Colombia can enjoy two harvests a year, which enables stable exports year-round and makes Colombia the world's second-largest coffee-exporting country.

Colombia Coffee Cesar Nabusimaque Typica Washed 2000M

Region: Magdalena region, Cesar area

Producer: Small coffee farmers from Nabusimaque village

Varieties: Typica, Caturra, Colombiana

Altitude: Average 2000 meters

Grade: Supremo (SC17+)

Processing Method: Traditional washed processing

Harvest Period: 30% from April to June, 70% from September to January

Flavor Description: Fruity aroma, roasted walnut fragrance, brown sugar, vanilla chocolate, rich oily mouthfeel

Nabusimaque village sits in the southeastern mountain range of the Magdalena province's Cesar area, at an average altitude of 2000 meters. With a wide temperature swing between day and night, it is an excellent place to grow coffee. Historically the village is home to the Arawaku indigenous people of South America. Today it is a production group made up of 50 Arawaku family coffee farmers. The Arawaku receive guidance and resources from the non-profit organization NPO, which provides both production technical guidance and assistance with washed-processing equipment and coffee export, helping their coffee improve year after year.

Introduction

Western Colombia is the Andes, divided into the Western, Central, and Eastern Cordilleras, while the Cauca and Magdalena rivers flow through the Caribbean coastal lowlands. Colombia is currently the world's second-largest coffee-producing country, using washed processing for its Arabica beans, and it is also one of the world's largest producers of high-quality coffee. Traditional dark-roasted coffee has a strong, memorable flavor. Coffee first came to Colombia in 1808, brought by a priest from the French Antilles by way of Venezuela. Today the country is the third-largest coffee producer after Brazil and Vietnam, with an annual output of 12 million bags of 60 kg each, against Brazil's annual production of 31 million bags.

Coffee's standing in Colombia shows in small details: all vehicles entering the country must be spray-disinfected to avoid inadvertently bringing in diseases that could harm the coffee trees. Colombia is the world's second-largest exporter of Arabica beans, behind only Brazil, while Robusta is rarely cultivated. Compared with other producing countries, Colombia pays more attention to developing new varieties and promoting production. That focus, together with its superior geography and climate, is what makes Colombian coffee high-quality, delicious, and world-renowned.

Main producing regions include Huila (San Augustin), Nariño, Tolima, Popayan (Cauca), Valle de Cauca, Meta, Antioquia (Medellin), Magdelena (Sierra Nevada), Boyaca, and Santander (Bucaramanga). Colombia has roughly 700 million documented coffee trees, of which 66% are planted in modern plantation-style cultivation and the rest on traditional small farms. The main varieties include Caturra, Colombia, Typica, Bourbon, Maragogype, and Tabi. Regardless of scale, more than 500,000 farmers operate farms and cooperatives across 590 municipalities and 14 major coffee regions, with a total of 2 million Colombians relying on coffee for their livelihood and coffee contributing 12.5% of the country's gross production. In the early 1960s, yield was about 600 kg per hectare; it has since risen to about 900 kg, with individual farms reaching 2500 kg. Colombia established the National Coffee Management Association in 1927 to oversee quality. Although a private institution, it acts on behalf of the government. Beyond organizing the industry, it handles coffee price control, healthcare, education, road construction, employment of cultivation technicians, surveys, and product quality supervision, directly manages 50% of total export business, and employs marketing staff. Like Kenya's National Coffee Management Association, it is a model for how a coffee organization can be run.

How to Brew Colombia Coffee [Cesar Nabusimaque] Well?

FrontStreet Coffee Hand-pour Reference: Weigh 15g of [Cesar Nabusimaque] coffee, then grind it medium, with particles slightly coarser than table salt. FrontStreet uses a BG grinder setting 5R (60% standard sieve pass-through rate), a water temperature of 89°C, a V60 dripper, and a recommended coffee-to-water ratio of about 1:15.

Circle the hot water in the kettle clockwise around the center of the dripper. Start timing when the pour begins, brew to 30g in 15 seconds, then stop pouring. At 1 minute, pour the second stage. As before, circle clockwise around the center of the dripper, and avoid pouring onto the area where the coffee bed meets the filter paper, which would cause channeling.

Leave a ring when you reach the outermost band of the bed, then circle back toward the center. At 2 minutes 20 seconds, brew to 220g, and the extraction is complete.

Japanese-style Iced Pour-over [Cesar Nabusimaque]

FrontStreet Coffee Iced Pour-over [Cesar Nabusimaque] Reference:

Colombia coffee [Cesar Nabusimaque], light-to-medium roast, BG grinder setting 5M (67% standard sieve pass-through rate).

20g of coffee, 150g of ice cubes, 150g of hot water. The water temperature should be 1°C higher than the normal pour-over recommendation of 90°C. Normal grinding uses the small Fuji 3.5 setting, while iced pour-over uses a setting finer by half a step, small Fuji 3. Recommended coffee-to-(water plus ice) ratio of 1:15.

Bloom water amount 40g, bloom time 30 seconds.

Segmented pouring, first segment 60g of water, second segment 40g of water. Use a relatively fine but high water column, stirring firmly to make sure the bed rolls fully, while being careful not to let the liquid level get too high or to pour on the edge of the filter paper.

The entire extraction takes about 2.5 minutes, similar to the normal extraction time for 20g of coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If Nabusimaque leaves you wanting more of Colombia's range, FrontStreet's washed Huila is the reference point for the country's best-known specialty region. Huila sits in the southern Central Cordillera, a landscape of hills surrounded by mountains where Colombia's most important rivers meet, feeding abundant water and humidity into growing areas above 1,500 meters. Medium-dark roasted, it emphasizes the bittersweet depth of dark chocolate and nuts with a moderate oil and a full, rounded body, and it works as pour-over, French press, moka pot, or espresso for an Americano or latte.

For a more modern Colombian profile, the FrontStreet Colombia Frontera Estate Sidra is processed anaerobically as a natural. Fermented in a low-oxygen environment, it converts the fruit into tropical aromatics; lightly to medium roasted, it shows complex passion fruit, grape, apricot, and dried fruit whether brewed as pour-over, cold brew, drip bag, or moka pot.

And for espresso or a moka pot, FrontStreet's Premium Blend pairs Brazil's creamy nuttiness with Colombia's dark chocolate bittersweetness to pull a fine golden crema, easy to work with for a latte or as the base of an Americano, cappuccino, or mocha.