How to Solve Astringency in Pour-Over Brazilian Caramel Minas Estate Coffee _ How to Brew Minas Coffee Beans for Pour-Over

Brazil Coffee Carmo Minas Estate

The dry aroma opens with fresh citrus and pomelo, delicate hazelnut woven through caramel sweetness, and a subtle hint of hops. On tasting it is like drinking a glass of sweet orange juice: at high temperatures cream and pomelo linger, and as the cup cools it turns toward grapefruit and lime. You can also pick out golden kiwi and a gentle acidity. The caramel aftertaste makes the overall flavor richer, clearer, and more delicate.

Pulped Natural Processing Method

The pulped natural (semi-washed) process is used primarily for Brazilian coffee. After harvest, the cherries pass through a depulper to remove the skin and most of the pulp, then dry on raised beds. The pulp that remains on the bean boosts the coffee's sweetness.

Production Process Steps

1. Manual Cherry Picking

The estate sits on high-altitude mountain slopes that allow only manual picking, and only ripe cherries are harvested. Beyond hand picking, the coffee trees are given ample growing space rather than dense planting, so they grow tall with branches spreading over a large area. Under today's specialty coffee quality standards, not only is manual picking required - the pickers must also selectively harvest cherries at just the right ripeness.

2. Reception and Initial Processing

At the reception and processing station, cherries are delivered twice daily and washed, pulped, and spread out on the same day. The pulped natural method demands continuous processing with no delays. These operations are concentrated at the group's other estate, Fazenda do Sertao.

3. Washing and Drying Preparation

Once received, the cherries are washed, depulped, and washed again, then spread the same day on cement patios for drying.

4. Drying and Resting

The second drying stage uses mechanical drying, followed by the crucial resting phase, with the goal of uniform drying down to 10.5%-11% moisture content. One exceptional lot from the 2008-2009 harvest, for instance, could not be entered into the Cup of Excellence competition because of this resting period - which is exactly why we were able to buy it.

5. Quality Stabilization

The parchment coffee rests for 30 days to guarantee stable quality.

6. Milling and Grading

The lots are then transported to the cooperative for final dry milling and graded packaging (the cooperative runs precision density sorters and electronic color sorters for this final processing).

7. Continuous Quality Control

Process management and quality supervision are enforced at every stage: each harvested and processed batch is independently labeled with the cooperative cuppers' evaluations, and retained samples are kept. Buyers (international roasters) of each batch have access to this information for mutual discussion and comparison.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Recommendations:

How to Brew Brazil Coffee Carmo Minas Estate?

FrontStreet Coffee pour-over reference: Weigh out 15g of Carmo Minas Estate coffee, grind to medium - the particles should be slightly coarser than table salt. We use the BG grinder at setting 6A (50% pass rate on the standard sieve), water at 88°C, extracted with a Kono or Kalita dripper, at a recommended coffee-to-water ratio of about 1:14.

Pour hot water from the gooseneck kettle in clockwise circles centered on the middle of the dripper, starting the timer as you begin. Within 15 seconds bring the brew to 30g, then stop. When the timer reaches 1 minute, start the second pour - again clockwise circles around the center. Avoid pouring directly where the coffee bed meets the filter paper to prevent channeling.

Leave a gap when you reach the outermost ring of grounds, then spiral back circle by circle toward the center. At 2 minutes 10 seconds the brew should reach 210g, completing the extraction.

Japanese-style Iced Pour-over Carmo Minas Estate

FrontStreet Coffee iced pour-over reference:

Brazil Carmo Minas Estate, medium-dark roast, BG grinder setting 5R (60% pass rate on the standard sieve).

Use 20g of coffee, 150g of ice, and 150g of hot water. The water temperature should be 1°C higher than the normal pour-over recommendation of 88°C. Normal grinding uses the Fuji at setting 3.5, while for iced pour-over go half a setting finer - Fuji 3. The recommended coffee-to-(water+ice) ratio is 1:15.

Bloom with 40g of water for 30 seconds.

Segmented pouring: first segment 60g of water, second segment 40g. Use a fine but tall water column so the pour stirs the bed forcefully and the grounds tumble fully - but be careful not to let the liquid level rise too high, and avoid pouring onto the filter paper at the edge.

Total extraction time is approximately 2.5 minutes (similar to the normal extraction time for a 20g dose).

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

As the world's largest coffee producer, Brazil grows an enormous range of coffees. Brazilian beans carry moderate acidity and an excellent balance of sweetness, bitterness, and body, which makes them ideal for medium roasting: the result is a nutty, mellow, softly acidic cup that works both as single origin and in blends. If you just want a first taste of Brazil, FrontStreet Coffee's pulped natural Cerrado Red Bourbon is a classic: creamy peanut, toast, caramel, and hazelnut aromas in a round, non-acidic cup with a slight bitter edge - equally at home in a pour-over, moka pot, espresso (SOE), siphon, or French press.

For something more refined, try FrontStreet Coffee's Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon from Mogiana, near southern Minas. The region's fertile red volcanic soil feeds the cherries plenty of nutrients for a full aroma, and Yellow Bourbon - a mutation of Red Bourbon - gives a cleaner fruit character with a sugarcane sweetness you won't find elsewhere, plus fruity and chocolate notes through pour-over, moka pot, or home espresso.

Brazil's low acidity and balance also make it the backbone of many espresso blends. FrontStreet Coffee's Classic Blend (rich crema), Premium Blend (nut-forward), Black Cocoa Blend, and cafe-oriented Commercial Blend all contain Brazilian beans, adding chocolate and cream aromas, gentle sour-sweet-bitter balance, and - as with the Carmo Minas above - a stable extraction. If you struggled with astringency in a bright washed coffee, these medium-roast Brazilians are the forgiving place to start.