Understanding Colombian Coffee Grade Classifications: Premium vs. Special Selection and Optimal Roasting Profiles for Colombian and Brazilian Beans

When it comes to Colombian coffee beans, the delicate berry sweetness and acidity, roasted nutty aroma, and caramel-like aftertaste create a perfectly balanced coffee flavor that makes many newcomers to pour-over coffee exclaim: This is absolutely delicious!! It's neither too acidic nor too bitter - I love it!

Colombia has become the world's second-largest producer of Arabica coffee beans primarily due to the active volcanoes within and around the country. Volcanic ash from eruptions covers the soil, providing rich minerals. Such fertile volcanic soil, combined with high altitude and microclimate support, gives the coffee beans grown here the characteristics of gentle acidity, solid and full-bodied texture.

In recent years, coffee competitions have increased farmers' income, helping Colombian coffee shed its old reputation as merely a base bean. Previously, everyone used it as commercial coffee beans or for espresso blends, with only a few coffee beans meeting the quality standards to become specialty coffee on their own. With improvements in cultivation techniques, Colombian coffee beans now show significant quality advancement, making it rare to encounter particularly poor-quality beans.

Colombian Coffee Bean Grading System

The Colombian coffee bean grading system is based on the size of green coffee beans, with specialized screens used for sorting (size unit: mesh). Colombian coffee beans are divided into 3 grades, with different mesh sizes corresponding to different grades:

Supreme Grade: 95% 17 mesh
EP Grade: 15 mesh (coffee bean grade customized for European market)
U.G.Q Grade: 14 mesh

(There are also some grade branches: 95% 18 mesh is called Supreme Premium, while 95% 16 mesh is called Extra)

The Excelso Classification

At this point, some might ask: Doesn't FrontStreet Coffee also have Excelso? Here, FrontStreet Coffee needs to make a correction: Excelso does not represent any Colombian green coffee bean grading system and is not part of the Colombian green coffee bean classification levels. In fact, Excelso is the highest export grade for Colombian green coffee beans. Regardless of the mesh size grade, as long as green coffee beans are exported, they belong to the Excelso level. This means Supreme Screen 18+, Supreme, EP, and U.G.Q are all Excelso level.

This is why Colombian green coffee bags are all marked with Excelso. To strictly control the quality of every exported coffee bean, the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) issued a new decree in 2016: only exported green coffee beans meeting Excelso standards would bear the "EXCELSO - Café de Colombia" logo on their packaging and receive a Quality Certificate from the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC).

Processing Methods and Brewing Recommendations

Most Colombian coffee farmers use the traditional washed processing method to remove the coffee fruit (coffee beans). The washed processing method includes a soaking and fermentation step in water pools, which mainly uses fermentation to break down the mucilage of the coffee fruit while allowing the coffee beans themselves to develop more acidity. Finally, through short drying periods, washed Colombian coffee beans display cleaner and fresher flavors. Therefore, when FrontStreet Coffee recommends Colombian coffee beans to newcomers, they always prioritize washed coffee beans from the Huila region.

When brewing Colombian washed coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee typically uses a V60 #01 dripper to enhance the coffee's complexity and highlight the beans' gentle acidity and caramel sweetness. Prepare 15g of coffee beans ground to a medium-fine consistency (fine sugar size; 75% retention rate on China standard #20 sieve), then brew with 90°C water at a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio in three separate pours.

Pour-over demonstration: Bloom with 30g of water for 30 seconds. Using a small circular stream, pour to 125g, then wait for the water level to drop before continuing to pour to 225g. Remove the dripper when the water level is about to expose the coffee bed (total extraction time from bloom start: 1'59").

Flavor profile of Huila washed Colombian coffee beans: Berry, nuts, caramel, chocolate

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Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473