What Does Nicaragua Santa Maria Estate Yellow Catuai Pour-Over Coffee Taste Like_Pour-Over Coffee Tips

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Santa Maria Estate Information and Story

Santa Maria de Lourdes is located in Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua's most renowned coffee-producing region, just a few kilometers from the city of San Fernando. It belongs to the Dipilto-Jalapa mountain range, characterized by lush forests and an excellent ecological environment. The farm sits at an altitude of 1,350-1,550 meters, with an average annual rainfall of 1,600-1,800mm and temperatures ranging from 18° to 23°C.

Santa Maria Estate was acquired by Octavio Peralta in 1994 with the goal of producing the highest quality coffee. The estate's 65 hectares are dedicated purely to forest conservation, while 46 hectares are planted with coffee. The overall environment is exceptionally pristine, resembling a primitive forest state, and has earned Rainforest Alliance certification.

Nueva Segovia, located near the Honduran border, is Nicaragua's premier coffee-producing region. In nearly every Cup of Excellence competition, the top five positions have been dominated by coffees from Nueva Segovia. Since 1970, the Peralta family has been operating farms in the Dipilto mountain area. However, for many years, this land suffered from the ravages of war, as Sandinista rebels long occupied the territory. After the conflict subsided, the family's coffee business gradually regained vitality. Currently, they own seven different farms of various sizes and experiment with different processing methods. Santa Maria is the most famous among them, with an impressive record in the Nicaragua Cup of Excellence competition, having won five times. Their award history includes 22nd place in 2007, 21st place in 2008, 6th place in 2009, and 19th place in 2014.

The varieties cultivated at Santa Maria include Caturra, red and yellow Catuai, as well as Java, a variety discovered locally in Nicaragua. The cherries are hand-harvested and transported to two family-operated processing plants for post-harvest processing.

Yellow Catuai Coffee Variety Introduction

Catuai green beans are relatively soft with a sweet flavor profile and minimal acidity and astringency - seemingly scoring only about 65 points. This is a variety that Brazil has strongly promoted, though it hasn't achieved significant success to date.

Catuai is also an Arabica hybrid variety, a cross between Mundo Novo and Caturra. It demonstrates better resistance to natural disasters, particularly wind and rain. It inherits the advantage of Caturra's short plant height, addressing the shortcomings of Mundo Novo. Another advantage is its firm fruit attachment, making it less likely to drop in strong winds, thus compensating for the fragile nature of Arabica cherries. However, its overall flavor profile is more monotonous than both Caturra and Mundo Novo, lacking body and richness, which is its greatest drawback. Additionally, its fruit-bearing lifespan is only about ten years, making its relatively short lifetime another weakness.

Catuai also comes in red fruit (Catuai Vermelho) and yellow fruit (Catuai Amerelo) varieties. While both red and yellow fruits exist, to date, no yellow fruit has been found to produce better flavor than red fruit. In fact, some cupping evaluations have revealed that while coffees processed from yellow fruits may have good acidity, their flavor cleanliness is inferior to those from red fruits. Statistically, red Catuai more frequently wins awards.

Because Caturra is high-yielding and less susceptible to pests and diseases but has poor flavor quality, Catuai was developed based on Caturra to improve these shortcomings in flavor. However, it seems to have become somewhat too balanced.

Natural Process Processing Method Introduction

The natural process is the oldest and most original coffee bean processing method. The process involves first pouring harvested coffee cherries into large water tanks, where mature, full cherries sink to the bottom while underdeveloped or overripe cherries float to the surface. After removing these floating beans, healthy coffee cherries are placed on patios for direct sun drying, reducing moisture content from 60% to 12-15%. Finally, hulling machines remove the dried hard outer skin and pulp, completing the entire processing cycle to obtain green beans.

(↑ Selecting coffee cherries) (↑ Outdoor sun drying)

The natural process can enhance berry and tropical fruit flavors with mild fruit acidity. However, traditional natural processing sometimes produces negative flavors such as earthy notes or over-fermentation.

Today, the natural process is becoming popular again, even becoming one of the important processing methods for competition-grade coffee beans. This change comes from the use of improved African raised beds. The raised beds avoid ground moisture, animal droppings, and earthy flavors, while allowing fruits to be in a good air convection environment, resulting in more uniform drying. Farmers regularly turn the cherries, allowing coffee beans to gently absorb the sweetness from the pulp, making the flavor increasingly full-bodied.

Roasting Suggestions/Analysis

Recommended brewing equipment: Pour-over, French press, siphon

Brewing Analysis

Today we introduce FrontStreet Coffee's commonly used method for hand-pouring Nicaraguan coffee: V60 three-stage pouring method.

Stage extraction: dividing all brewing water into three separate pours.

Suitable for light roast, medium-light roast, and medium roast coffee beans.

Uses V60 dripper.

Increasing bloom time or the number of pour interruptions can enhance the richness of coffee flavor.

Three-Stage Pouring Method

Advantages: More layered than single continuous pouring, clearly distinguishing the front, middle, and back-end flavors of the coffee. The method involves increasing water volume after each bloom, typically pouring when the coffee liquid level is about to drop to the powder bed surface, using small, medium, and large water flows for three-stage extraction.

Disadvantages: Requires higher control over water flow rate and volume.

FrontStreet Coffee's Nicaraguan Coffee Hand-Pour Parameter Suggestions

Using a V60 dripper can enhance the layered complexity of hand-pour flavor, making it richer and cleaner; perfectly expressing the rich floral and fruit aromas of Nicaraguan coffee with its soft fruit-like acidity.

15g coffee, water temperature 89-90°C, grind setting BG 5R (Chinese standard 64% pass-through rate for #20 sieve), water-to-coffee ratio close to 1:15.

Method: 30g water bloom, bloom time 30s. Using hot water from the pour-over kettle, draw clockwise circles centered in the middle of the filter. Start timing when brewing begins, pour to 30g, then stop pouring and wait 30 seconds before the first pour.

For the first pour, draw circles as before, slightly slower speed. When reaching the outer circle, increase speed slightly. Stop pouring at around 1:15 seconds. When the liquid level drops by 1/3, pour again. For the second pour, concentrate on the center, avoiding pouring water where coffee grounds meet the filter paper to prevent channeling effects. End extraction around 2:05 seconds. The tail section can be excluded (the longer the time, the more astringency and roughness will increase).

Stages: 30-125-230g

Important Notice :

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