Flavor Profile of Costa Rica Baha and Tutorial on Brewing Costa Rica Raisin Process Coffee

Introduction to Bach Coffee from FrontStreet Coffee

Have you ever tried Bach Coffee from FrontStreet Coffee? This is a coffee from Costa Rica's Musicians Series, named after the famous composer Johann Sebastian Bach. As we know, Costa Rican coffee is renowned for its excellent honey processing method, but have you heard of raisin honey processing? What special characteristics does Bach's raisin honey processing bring? Let's find out below.

Raisin Honey Processing Method

A method that preserves 100% mucilage and uses zero water treatment. This increases the difficulty of the honey processing method, requiring strict time control. On the day of harvesting coffee cherries, the harvested coffee fruits are poured into large water tanks, where mature and full fruits will sink to the bottom; underdeveloped or overripe fruits will float to the surface, and these floating beans must be removed. The selected coffee fruits are placed on raised beds to dry for at least three days, then the cherry skin is removed, preserving the mucilage before further drying. At this stage, climatic factors are key to the success of honey processing.

During the drying process, these coffee cherries must be constantly turned to ensure even drying, but the turning frequency must be controlled to dry slowly and ensure the coffee has fermented treatment, but not so slow as to cause over-fermentation.

The fruits used for making raisins must be mature fruits. The water content in raisins is only 15-25%, while their fructose content is as high as 60%, making them very sweet. Raisins can therefore be preserved for a long time. Over time, the fructose in raisins may crystallize, but this does not affect their edibility. Raisins can be eaten directly as snacks or used in pastries, and in some regions, they are used as seasonings in cooking.

Raisins dried under sunlight tend to become sour, while the highest quality ones are shade-dried. The seedless grapes from Turpan, Xinjiang, China are the most famous for making raisins. Turpan's climate is hot and dry. The shade-drying rooms built with bricks have many holes in the four walls, with wooden rod supports in the middle. Mature seedless grapes are hung on these supports, and with the blowing of hot air, high-quality raisins can be obtained quickly.

How is Raisin Honey Processing Applied to Coffee Fruits?

The processing flow I currently understand is "Double Fermentation Honey Processing," which first involves sun-drying the coffee fruits to a raisin-like state, then removing the fruit skin for honey processing fermentation. This method results in more intense fermentation aromas and higher mucilage preservation compared to other honey processing methods, claiming to be a 100% mucilage honey processing with truly distinctive raisin flavors. This is a quite sweet processing method, with the mouthfeel of white wine and balanced acidity. In terms of flavor, the fermentation aroma is more intense, and the mucilage preservation is higher than other honey processing methods, somewhat resembling "noble rot" sweet wines, with flavors of honey, dried apricots, raisins, and peaches.

Brewing

Because this [FrontStreet Coffee Costa Rica Bach] is a flavor-oriented bean, today I have chosen filter cups that are particularly suitable for brewing flavor-oriented beans: V60, cake filter cup, and Ice Pupil filter cup. The parameters and techniques remain consistent, using small water flow for quick brewing to increase agitation and bring out the aroma of these FrontStreet Coffee Bach beans. Three-stage brewing can increase coffee extraction.

Parameters: Water temperature 91°C, grind size BG 5R (Chinese standard 20 mesh sieve pass rate 58%), powder-to-water ratio 1:15

FrontStreet Coffee · Costa Rica Canet Musicians Series Bach

Country: Costa Rica

Region: Tarrazú

Altitude: 1,950m

Processing Method: Raisin Honey Processing

Grade: SHB

Variety: Caturra

V60 Filter Cup

The design of the V60 filter cup focuses on the speed of water level decline, allowing coffee grounds to achieve better extraction flow rates. The internal ribs adopt an arc-shaped vortex structure design that can accelerate water flow speed, extending from the bottom to the top, maintaining smooth ventilation from beginning to end.

The curved ribs increase the water flow path, extending the contact time between coffee particles and water. Because its flow rate is relatively fast, it can easily cause uneven extraction, but precisely because of this, it can make the coffee's flavor layers more abundant.

Technique: 30g of water for 30 seconds of blooming, pour water to 120g for segmentation. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring water to 228g and stop. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the filter cup. Starting from the blooming, the total extraction time is one minute and fifty-six seconds.

Flavor: At high temperature, the entry is quite balanced, with obvious fermented wine aroma, sweetness of rice wine and raisins, with some tea-like sensation in the finish; when the temperature slightly drops, the entry carries berry acidity and the aftertaste of brown rice tea, with obvious juice sensation; after completely cooling, it has orange-like sweet and sour sensation, with a light sucrose sweetness in the aftertaste.

Cake Filter Cup

The bottom of the cake filter cup is flat and has three drip holes, allowing the coffee grounds to be soaked for most of the extraction time, making the extraction of coffee grounds more even. The cup body and wavy filter paper do not fit too tightly, which can make the temperature more consistent and the water flow more dispersed. Coffee brewed with the cake filter cup has both a mellow mouthfeel and certain layers,介于V60和梯形滤杯之间。

Technique: 37g of water for 30 seconds of blooming, pour water to 120g for segmentation. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring water to 228g and stop. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the filter cup. Starting from the blooming, the total extraction time is two minutes and three seconds. (Because the bottom of the cake filter cup is flat, I would choose to use more water for blooming)

Flavor: It has obvious fermented wine aroma, the entry carries citrus acidity, with obvious juice sensation, the middle part has the feeling of nuts and almonds, the aftertaste is the feeling of brown rice tea and rice wine, with obvious sucrose sweetness and higher body.

Ice Pupil Filter Cup

The ribs of the Ice Pupil filter cup are distributed vertically in a step-like pattern. The bottom of the filter cup can present a state where the filter paper is suspended, and at the topmost part, the filter cup and filter paper are in a completely sealed state.

This design has a benefit: because the upper part of the filter cup and filter paper are in a completely sealed state, if too much water flow suddenly occurs during brewing, or if the water temperature is too high and floods the diversion groove, but because there is no space for ventilation, the water level's decline speed will slow down, allowing it to soak like the KONO filter cup, avoiding insufficient extraction. Coffee brewed with the Ice Pupil filter cup will have a good mouthfeel, and the flavor will tend toward balance.

Technique: 28g of water for 30 seconds of blooming, pour water to 123g for segmentation. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring water to 228g and stop. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the filter cup. Starting from the blooming, the total extraction time is two minutes.

Flavor: It has obvious fermented wine aroma, the entry has the feeling of rice wine, with a slight plum acidity, the flavor leans more toward cocoa, almonds, nuts, with caramel sweetness, giving an overall balanced sensation.

Summary

The three filter cups can be said to have different emphases. The [FrontStreet Coffee Bach] brewed with the V60 filter cup performs more richly and variedly in terms of flavor layers. Although the coffee brewed with the cake filter cup and Ice Pupil filter cup is generally more balanced, the [FrontStreet Coffee Bach] brewed with the cake filter cup still retains good fruit acidity and performs better in terms of body; while the [FrontStreet Coffee Bach] brewed with the Ice Pupil filter cup carries obvious fermented wine aroma, with more pronounced sweetness.

Therefore, the performance of these three filter cups when brewing this [FrontStreet Coffee Bach] bean is:

Flavor: V60 filter cup > Cake filter cup > Ice Pupil filter cup

Balance: Ice Pupil filter cup > Cake filter cup > V60 filter cup

Mouthfeel: Cake filter cup > Ice Pupil filter cup > V60 filter cup

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473