Flavor Characteristics of Colombian Huayuena and Rose Valley Coffee Beans & Colombian Coffee Bean Processing Methods

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Colombia is a beautiful country located in the northwestern part of South America, with a pleasant climate and spring-like weather year-round. Such climate not only nurtures people but is also very suitable for the growth of coffee trees. FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian coffee exudes a faint and elegant fragrance, not as strong as Brazilian coffee, nor as acidic as African coffee beans, but rather has a sweet aftertaste like dark chocolate, truly deserving the title of "coffee gentleman."

Colombia is one of the world's largest producers of high-quality coffee. Their coffee beans are basically grown near the Andes Mountains at high altitudes, so machines cannot harvest them—all are picked entirely by hand. Unlike Brazil, FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian coffee beans are mainly processed using the washed method. Among the seven daily-use coffee beans launched by FrontStreet Coffee, one comes from the famous specialty coffee producing region Huila in Colombia, which uses Colombia's more common washed processing method. This Huila region's FrontStreet Coffee daily-use bean has a very classic Colombian rich nutty and chocolate flavor.

In recent years, coffee-producing countries have innovated their original green coffee bean processing methods, creating various special processing methods. Among them, anaerobic fermentation processing is also very common in various countries, including Colombia. FrontStreet Coffee has acquired two coffee beans from Colombia with special processing methods—FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian Rose Valley and FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian Flower Moon Night. Both of these coffee beans are the common Colombian variety Caturra. Caturra is a variant of Bourbon, with smaller trees that are convenient for harvesting. Additionally, its disease resistance is very strong, and its yield is very high.

However, in recent years, the Castillo variety has also been heavily promoted for cultivation in Colombia. Castillo was jointly developed by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation and the Colombian Research Center with the aim of increasing yield and disease resistance. Castillo is famous for its rich aroma and citric acid. Among them, a FrontStreet Coffee's Isabella coffee bean acquired by FrontStreet Coffee is of the Castillo variety.

FrontStreet Coffee's Isabella coffee bean uses a semi-washed processing method. It has citrus, American, and cherry tomato acidity on the palate, with honey sweetness when cooled, and a floral aftertaste. The texture is smooth and clean. The FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Moon Night and Rose Valley coffee beans just mentioned have similar flavors—both have strawberry notes and floral aromas. But if you taste them carefully, you'll find that Rose Valley has a very strong floral aroma, while Flower Moon Night is relatively lighter, but the strawberry jam aroma comes rushing. Although both are FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian coffee beans, their processing methods are different.

FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Moon Night coffee uses anaerobic natural processing. The fruit flavors of FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Moon Night are more pronounced, even with fermented wine aroma. Taking a small sip of this FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian coffee, the rich strawberry jam aroma and peach texture are like drinking a glass of strawberry juice. The difference is that strawberry juice is pink in color, while FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Moon Night coffee liquid, under sunlight, looks like wine—mellow and sweet.

FrontStreet Coffee's Rose coffee bean comes from the Dashu Estate in the Santander region. Dashu Estate is very particular about processing coffee cherries—they only harvest fully mature coffee cherries that show a dark red color. Moreover, FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian coffee production is mainly dominated by large estates, with a small portion being family-based operations.

FrontStreet Coffee's Rose Valley has a unique coffee taste—honey peach juice rose tea, accompanied by the aroma of roses and liqueur chocolates, fragrant and rich. It has both the high-quality texture of black grapes and the silky texture of cream toffee. You will surely fall in love with the rich taste of this FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian coffee and remember it fondly. This is related to its special anaerobic double enzyme washed processing. This processing method has similarities with washed processing—after removing defective beans through flotation, machines are used to remove the skin and pulp. Then they are placed in an oxygen-free environment to slow down the decomposition of pectin sugars and extend the fermentation time. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee's Rose Valley tastes slightly more acidic than FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Moon Night. Because FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Moon Night uses anaerobic natural processing, the overall flavor is richer and more balanced. FrontStreet Coffee's Rose Valley, however, tastes more like juice, with grape flavors mixed with floral notes.

The three coffee beans just mentioned by FrontStreet Coffee all use anaerobic fermentation processing. Anaerobic fermentation processing is actually letting coffee beans ferment in an oxygen-free or low-oxygen environment. What FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above are all natural fermentations, making it very difficult to control the coffee flavor, so there are many uncertain factors. For example, in washed processing, during the pool fermentation process, will there be over-fermentation leading to overly acidic coffee beans? Or during natural processing, will too much sun exposure cause the pectin fermentation process to produce other undesirable flavors? These are very difficult to control and depend entirely on nature.

This is why anaerobic fermentation processing emerged. Its processing method generally involves placing coffee beans in a pressure-resistant sealed stainless steel bucket, controlling temperature, time, pH value, and the required fermentation process to achieve the desired coffee flavor. FrontStreet Coffee's store also has many types of anaerobic fermented coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee will use a FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Moon Night coffee bean from Colombia's Huila region to introduce roughly how the artificial fermentation process is carried out. First, freshly harvested coffee cherries with defective beans removed are directly placed in a sealed fermentation bucket for low-temperature fermentation at temperatures between 10-15 degrees. In an anaerobic environment, the decomposition speed of pectin sugars slows down because low temperatures inhibit microbial growth. So the fermentation time of coffee beans is longer than traditional natural processing, increasing sweetness. After more than three days of anaerobic fermentation, the coffee cherries in the bucket undergo natural drying, and after drying is complete, the skin and pulp are removed before being stored in the warehouse. Therefore, through cupping, FrontStreet Coffee found that this FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Moon Night coffee has very obvious sweetness, somewhat like strawberry jam flavor, with a hint of fermented wine aroma.

When brewing this FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian coffee bean, FrontStreet Coffee chooses 15 grams, with a medium-fine grind degree, a powder-to-water ratio of 1:15, and uses a common Hario V60 dripper. The conical shape of the dripper enhances the coffee's layers. Water temperature is chosen at 91 degrees Celsius.

In the first stage, inject 30 grams of water for blooming, with a blooming time of 30 seconds. The purpose of blooming is to properly release carbon dioxide and avoid excessive carbon dioxide content affecting extraction. In the second stage, inject 100 grams of water, plus the blooming water, totaling 130 grams. Inject evenly in circles to strengthen front and middle stage extraction, enhancing the extraction of small molecule substances in the front and middle stages. After injection, wait 10 seconds, then inject the remaining 95 grams of water, evenly in circles. Finally, inject 25 grams vertically at the center to avoid excessive turbulence that would extract too much bitterness from the later stages. The overall brewing flavor of this FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian coffee bean is: strawberry jam flavor, fermented aroma, and sweet chocolate taste.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

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