Costa Rica Genesis Estate Coffee Flavor Profile and Estate Introduction

This sun-processed Costa Rican is a coffee that FrontStreet Coffee has been selling for quite some time. While you may know that Costa Rica is most famous for honey processing, FrontStreet Coffee's choice of a sun-processed coffee certainly has its unique merits. During testing, this bean exhibited incredibly complex, full, and diverse fruit aromas, with a fusion of sufficiently high sweetness and bright, solid acidity. Without exaggeration, this is pure juice, with an exceptionally persistent and sweet aftertaste that is truly surprising! Below, FrontStreet Coffee will provide a detailed introduction to this bean's information!

Genesis Estate

This year, FrontStreet Coffee has once again introduced high-quality coffee from this estate. Genesis Estate is a renowned farm that won the championship in the 2008 Costa Rican Cup of Excellence (COE) competition. Located in Lourdes de Naranjo, Costa Rica, it is a completely 100% organically grown coffee estate. "Genesis" is a particularly special name. Estate owners Oscar and Olga Mendez expressed that for them, this represents a new beginning - they independently grow, process, and sell their pride-worthy coffee.

You might notice something interesting: many excellent estates share a common characteristic - "nature." That is, to make coffee taste "natural," estates also strive to make the growing environment as "natural" as possible. However, this requires effort and sacrifice. First, more primary forest must be preserved, which means less planting and naturally lower yields. Next, no pesticides or chemical fertilizers can be used, and certainly no herbicides, so more human labor must be invested in weeding, pest control, and so on... Of course, what you gain is coffee with a "natural" flavor profile.

The first impression of this coffee is "extremely sweet" - an astonishing sweetness that can be clearly perceived from the dry aroma immediately after grinding. It presents the sweetness of ripe fruits, honey, and strawberry cookies. The wet aroma after adding hot water reveals an elegant tea-like quality, with notes of berries, grapes, and baked biscuits. The cup profile shows clear differences from traditionally washed Costa Rican coffees. Besides lower acidity, the mouthfeel is also rounder. Importantly, for a honey-processed bean, it is exceptionally clean, which FrontStreet Coffee considers quite remarkable. Strong and sweet honey lemon flavors, ripe juicy fruits, sweet nuts, biscuits, raisins, with a hint of fresh soil - an ultimate sun-processed coffee!

Processing Method Introduction

This batch of coffee beans was harvested from highlands at 1700 meters above sea level. The high-standard Genesis Micro-batch Processing Plant adopted sun-drying processing for these beans. Before placing them on drying beds, fruits with intact skins were selected. After sun-drying, they were moved indoors to maintain dryness, bringing the moisture content to around 10%. Oscar uses courtyard space to dry washed coffees, as well as drying beds for honey and sun processing.

FrontStreet Coffee Green Bean Analysis

Caturra is a natural variant of Bourbon, discovered in Brazil in 1937. Its plant is not as tall as Bourbon, but rather more compact. Due to inheriting Bourbon's lineage, it has relatively weak disease resistance but higher yields than Bourbon. Although discovered in Brazil, Caturra is not suitable for growing there, so it wasn't cultivated on a large scale in Brazil. Instead, it became widely popular in Central and South American regions, such as Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. Catuai is an artificially hybrid coffee variety of Caturra and Mundo Novo. Catuai has better resistance to natural disasters, particularly wind and rain. The Catuai tree variety is relatively low-growing. Compared to other coffee trees, Catuai's fruits grow more firmly and are not easy to pick. The fruits come in both red and yellow varieties.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Analysis

This coffee belongs to SHB grade, with quite hard bean density. Roasting uses a relatively high heat to climb, with the yellowing point at around 5 minutes and 30 seconds, then reducing heat and opening the air damper to enter the Maillard reaction. At 168°C, heat is reduced again to extend the Maillard reaction time. First crack occurs at about 182°C. For this sun-processed bean, heat needs to be reduced before first crack to prevent too rapid climbing that would cause bitterness. At 1 minute and 50 seconds, beans are dropped at 195°C.

Yangjia 600g Semi-direct Fire Roasting Machine

Preheat the roaster to 200°C before loading, with air damper set to 3. After 30 seconds, start ignition, adjust heat to 160. Return to temperature point at 1'31", maintain heat, yellowing at 5'30", grassy smell disappears, entering dehydration stage. Heat is reduced to 130, air damper opened to 4. At 168°C, heat is reduced again to 100. Dehydration completed at 8', wrinkles and black markings appear on bean surface, toast aroma turns to coffee aroma, which is the prelude to first crack. At this point, reduce heat to 80 and listen carefully for first crack sounds. First crack begins at 8'30", air damper fully opened to 5. Development time after first crack is 2 minutes and 20 seconds, dropping at 195°C.

This bean is dried using African-style sun-drying racks, precisely controlling the processing quality of green beans. It has high overall balance, good sweetness, and very clean mouthfeel. With fermented wine aroma, spices, and caramel fragrance, it presents acidity first followed by sweetness in the mouth, with citrus and grapefruit flavors, a juicy texture and refreshing berry aftertaste.

Costa Rica Genesis Micro-batch

Country: Costa Rica
Region: Western Valley
Processing Plant: Finca Genesis Micro-batch Processing Plant
Altitude: 1700 meters
Variety: Caturra/Catuai
Grade: SHB
Processing Method: Sun-processed

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Data:

Grind Size: 3.5 (Japanese Fuji R440)
Water Temperature: 90°C
V60 Dripper, 15g coffee grounds
Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15

FrontStreet Coffee Recommended Brewing Method:

Pour-over - 30ml water for bloom, bloom time 30s.分段: Pour water to 120ml, pause, then slowly pour to 230ml, following the 30-120-80 pattern. Total extraction time: 2 minutes.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473