How to Make the Best Pour-Over Coffee with Brazil Lagoa Estate Natural Beans

Brazil Coffee - Da Lagoa Estate Natural

From Da Lagoa Estate in Minas Gerais, Brazil, at an altitude of 1100 meters.

Da Lagoa Estate uses the most traditional natural drying method, without machine drying, which can deliver higher sweetness than washed beans along with the complex aromas of natural fermentation. The coffee has the very high smoothness that Brazil's traditional grading system values most, with a prominent nutty and chocolate aftertaste and excellent cleanliness. This is a coffee whose style is not especially flashy but is very smooth to drink.

The body is high and the aftertaste lingers, making it well suited to a morning cup that refreshes the palate while staying memorable for a long time.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Parameters Suggestions:

How to Brew Brazil Coffee [Da Lagoa Estate Natural] Well?

FrontStreet Coffee pour-over reference: weigh 15g of [Da Lagoa Estate Natural] coffee grounds and grind to a medium setting. The particles should be slightly coarser than table salt. We use a BG grinder at setting 6A (50% pass rate on a standard sieve), water at 88°C, and extraction with a Kono or Kalita dripper, with a recommended coffee-to-water ratio of around 1:14.

Pour the hot water in clockwise circles centered on the middle of the dripper. Start timing when brewing begins, and pour to 30g within 15 seconds, then stop. When the timer reaches 1 minute, begin the second pour, again circling clockwise around the center. The stream should not hit the area where the grounds meet the filter paper, which would cause channeling.

Leave a ring of space when you reach the outermost edge of the bed, then continue circling inward. At 2 minutes and 10 seconds, the coffee should have reached 210g, completing the brew.

Japanese Iced Hand Brew [Da Lagoa Estate Natural]

FrontStreet Coffee iced pour-over reference for [Da Lagoa Estate Natural]:

Brazil coffee [Da Lagoa Estate Natural], medium-dark roast, BG grinder at setting 5R (60% pass rate on a standard sieve)

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

Bloom with 40g of water for 30 seconds.

Pour in stages: 60g of water first, then 40g. Use a relatively fine but tall column of water, stirring firmly so the grounds tumble fully, while taking care not to let the liquid level rise too high or to hit the filter paper at the edge.

The entire extraction also takes about 2.5 minutes, close to the normal extraction time for 20g of grounds.

Served this way, the Da Lagoa Estate Natural keeps its nutty, chocolate-driven sweetness and clean finish intact, whether drunk hot on a slow morning or over ice on a warm afternoon.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Da Lagoa Estate shows how much a natural process can add to a Brazilian coffee, and FrontStreet Coffee's single-origin Brazilian range makes that comparison easy. The Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon is the most classic example of the country's style. Grown in Cerrado, the region that gave Brazil its reputation for consistent quality, and processed semi-washed, it is roasted medium and opens with cream peanut, toasted bread, caramel, and hazelnut. The cup is round and full, with almost no acidity and only a light bitterness behind the sweetness, and it is comfortable in a pour-over, a moka pot, an espresso SOE, a siphon, or a French press.

Drinkers who want a cleaner fruit expression can look to the Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon. It comes from Mogiana, near South Minas, where fertile red volcanic soil nourishes the trees, and Yellow Bourbon is a natural mutation of Red Bourbon. Roasted medium, it shows the sugarcane sweetness that is hard to find outside the region, alongside fruit and chocolate, and it works well as a pour-over, in a moka pot, or in a home espresso machine. Both coffees also feature in FrontStreet Coffee's espresso blends, the Classic Blend, FrontStreet Coffee's Premium Blend, and Black Cocoa, where Brazilian beans provide the chocolate and cream notes and the soft, balanced acidity that keeps a blend steady shot after shot.