How to Hand-Brew Brazil Cerrado Mineiro Estate Red Catuai Coffee Beans_ What to Do When Hand-Brewed Coffee is Over-Extracted

NO.2 Washed Brazilian Coffee

A mellow coffee that carries both sweetness and chocolate flavor notes

THE FARM

If Ethiopia is the world's largest repository of Arabica genetics, then Brazil is the world's largest center for Arabica variety improvement and innovation. Catuai is a hybrid of Mundo Novo and Caturra, developed by Brazilian agricultural research institutions, which makes it a second-generation hybrid. It inherits Caturra's advantage of low tree height while improving on Mundo Novo's shortcomings, and it also offsets the fragile nature of Arabica cherries. The fruit set is solid and does not drop easily even in strong wind. Catuai also comes in red and yellow varieties, and the red one wins awards more often than the yellow. For this selection we chose the red Catuai, produced at Sitio Bateia Farm in Brazil. Although it is not a famous estate, that does not stop it from nurturing this high-quality Brazilian coffee, which is very clean with prominent, memorable flavors.

THE COFFEE

Origin: Sitio Bateia Farm

Variety: Red Catuai

Altitude: 870-1000 Meters

Processing: Washed

Roast Level: Medium Roast

Overall Profile: Full-bodied with low acidity

Flavor Notes: Dark chocolate, caramel, cinnamon

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Recommendations:

How to Brew Brazilian Coffee [Sitio Bateia Farm Red Catuai]?

FrontStreet Coffee Hand-pour Reference: Weigh 15g of Sitio Bateia Farm Red Catuai coffee and grind it medium. The ground particles should be slightly coarser than table salt. We use BG grinder setting 6A (50% standard sieve pass rate) and a water temperature of 88°C, extracted with a Kono or Kalita dripper, at a recommended coffee-to-water ratio of around 1:14.

Pour the hot water from the gooseneck kettle in clockwise circles centered on the middle of the dripper. Start timing as soon as you begin brewing. Within 15 seconds, brew the coffee up to 30g, then stop pouring. When the clock reaches 1 minute, pour for the second time. For this second pour, just as before, pour in clockwise circles centered on the middle of the dripper. Don't let the water stream hit where the coffee meets the filter paper, or you will create channeling.

Leave about one circle of space when you reach the outermost edge of the coffee bed, then keep pouring circle by circle back toward the center. At 2 minutes and 10 seconds, brew the coffee up to 210g to finish the pour.

Japanese-style Iced Pour-over [Sitio Bateia Farm Red Catuai]

FrontStreet Coffee Iced Pour-over [Sitio Bateia Farm Red Catuai] Reference:

Brazilian Coffee [Sitio Bateia Farm Red Catuai], medium-dark roast, BG grinder setting 5R (60% standard sieve pass rate)

20g coffee, 150g ice cubes, 150g hot water. The water temperature should be 1°C higher than the normal hand-pour recommendation of 88°C. For a normal grind use Fuji setting 3.5; for iced pour-over grind slightly finer by half a setting — Fuji 3. The recommended coffee-to-(water+ice) ratio is 1:15.

Bloom with 40g of water for 30 seconds.

Pour in stages: a first segment of 60g of water, then a second segment of 40g. Use a relatively fine but high water column to stir and agitate forcefully, making sure the coffee grounds roll fully. Be careful, though, not to let the liquid level rise too high or to hit the edge filter paper.

The entire extraction takes approximately 2.5 minutes (similar to the normal extraction time for 20g of coffee).

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

For a first taste of what Brazil does best, FrontStreet's Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon is a classic single-origin pick. Cerrado is one of the country's best-known coffee regions, prized for high-quality beans, and this lot is the red Bourbon variety common across South America. Roasted medium, it opens up rich aromas of creamy peanut, toasted bread, caramel, and hazelnut, with a rounded body, low acidity, and a gentle touch of bitterness. It works beautifully as a pour-over and is just as happy in a moka pot, an espresso SOE, a siphon, or a French press.

If you want to explore a rarer Brazilian variety, try FrontStreet's Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon, grown in Mogiana near South Minas. The region's fertile red volcanic soil lets the cherries take in plenty of nutrients and develop a full, generous aroma, and the estate grows the uncommon Yellow Bourbon, a natural mutation of Red Bourbon with an even cleaner fruit character. Whether you brew it as pour-over, moka pot, or on a home espresso machine, FrontStreet Brazil Queen Estate delivers a sugarcane-like sweetness rarely found in other regions, alongside fruit and chocolate notes.

Brazil's low-acid, balanced cup and friendly price also make it a go-to base for espresso blends. Several FrontStreet blends — the rich, crema-heavy Classic Blend, the nutty Specialty Blend, the well-balanced Black Cocoa that so many baristas recommend, and FrontStreet Coffee's Commercial Blend built for cafés — all include Brazilian beans. The Brazilian component adds chocolate and creamy aromatics, a soft sweet-sour-bitterness, and a balanced character that keeps extraction consistent from shot to shot.