Recommended Varieties of Brazilian Coffee Beans: Production, Flavor, and Taste Characteristics of Premium Brazilian Coffee

Most Brazilian coffee is grown using sun-drying methods on low-altitude flatlands. The lack of microclimate, combined with batch harvesting and processing, creates coffee with low acidity, full-bodied nutty and chocolate flavor notes, making it widely used in espresso blends. Some might think such Brazilian coffee flavors are too monotonous and mostly commercial grade, but Brazil also has premium quality specialty coffee, such as FrontStreet Coffee's house-roasted "Brazil Queen Estate Coffee Beans," which selects the exceptionally flavorful Yellow Bourbon variety—a Brazilian single-origin coffee with excellent value.

FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Queen Estate Coffee Beans

Region: Mogiana Region, Brazil

Estate: Queen Estate

Altitude: 1400～1950m

Variety: Yellow Bourbon

Processing: Natural Process

Flavor: Dark chocolate, cream, peanut, sugarcane, nuts

Queen Estate is located in São Paulo's Mogiana region, near southern Minas Gerais, and ranks among Brazil's three major specialty regions alongside Cerrado and South Minas. Unlike typical Brazilian coffee beans, Mogiana has cultivation altitudes of 1100～1250 meters, with terrain much higher than other regions of São Paulo. The altitude differences create greater temperature variations, resulting in higher coffee quality. Meanwhile, the rolling terrain means Queen Estate mostly harvests coffee cherries by hand, primarily exporting specialty coffee of Bourbon varieties. Among these, the delicately flavored Yellow Bourbon has won multiple top rankings for Queen Estate in various coffee competitions.

Yellow Bourbon Variety

Yellow Bourbon is a Bourbon variety variant cultivated in Brazil. Common Bourbon varieties gradually change color from green to light yellow, then red, and finally deep red when fully mature, hence called Red Bourbon. FrontStreet Coffee's daily Brazilian blend is selected from traditional Red Bourbon varieties, featuring chocolate and peanut flavors after roasting.

Yellow Bourbon, however, doesn't develop cherry-red color during maturity but instead appears orange-yellow, discovered in 1930. Later research by the Campinas Agronomic Institute (IAC) found that plants with dominant XcXc gene pairs produce red berries; plants with recessive xcxc gene pairs produce yellow berries, and in rare cases, plants with one dominant gene and another recessive Xcxc plant produce orange berries. Therefore, Yellow Bourbon's "yellow" color is due to genetic color selection. Yellow Bourbon grown in high-altitude areas contains high amounts of fructose, presenting sweet and juicy flavors. It once swept Brazil's "Cup of Excellence" competition for two consecutive years, nearly sweeping the top three awards and captivating the specialty coffee world!

Natural Processing Method

After harvesting mature Yellow Bourbon coffee cherries, Queen Estate uses natural processing, allowing coffee cherries to absorb more fruit pulp sweetness during drying. Brazil is located near the equator, and since the harvest season coincides with the dry season, coffee cherries are very suitable for direct dehydration and drying through sun exposure.

However, traditional "sun-drying" methods are quite crude—after harvesting, cherries are directly dumped on muddy ground for drying, producing coffee prone to mixing with earthy flavors, and uneven heating creates negative aromas from over-fermentation. Queen Estate first pours coffee cherries into water tanks, using flotation to remove underripe cherries, then spreads coffee in small batches on African raised beds with better air permeability, turning them occasionally, thus avoiding earthy flavors and over-fermentation. The sweetness is also elevated to a higher level than traditional natural processing.

Roasting and Brewing

For roasting, FrontStreet Coffee aims to highlight Queen Estate's classic Brazilian flavor profile—low acidity and full-bodied characteristics—so FrontStreet Coffee uses medium-dark roast. Through cupping, FrontStreet Coffee tasted that this Queen Estate has very prominent sweetness, therefore FrontStreet Coffee uses three-stage pouring in brewing, hoping to present more layered complexity in the coffee.

Since coffee beans enter their optimal flavor period 4-7 days after roasting, after this time (about one and a half months post-roasting), the coffee's aroma may have dissipated, and some woody flavors may have developed. To avoid this situation, FrontStreet Coffee has mentioned in many articles that most importantly, FrontStreet Coffee only ships coffee beans roasted within 5 days, so everyone can enjoy coffee with excellent flavors.

Brewing Recommendations

Dripper: Medium-dark roasted coffee beans mainly present full-bodied and rounded口感. For this characteristic, FrontStreet Coffee chooses the slower-flow KONO dripper for extraction. The upper part of KONO has a smooth curved surface, while the lower part has one-third length guide ribs. This allows filter paper to fit more closely with the dripper, restricting upward airflow, so hot water can only flow downward, creating a siphon-like extraction effect that releases more aromatic substances from the coffee grounds.

Medium roasted coffee changes the internal structure of beans to a great extent, making them porous and more absorbent when ground into coffee powder. If brewing parameters aren't adjusted properly, coffee will easily become over-extracted and bitter. To have enough aroma without over-extraction, you need to reduce the extraction rate. FrontStreet Coffee uses lower water temperature and coarser grind to reduce the release of bitter macromolecules in coffee. Coffee grounds absorb about twice their weight in water. FrontStreet Coffee typically uses 15g of coffee grounds, extracting at a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, finally yielding close to 200ml of coffee liquid, serving 1-2 people.

Brewing Parameters:

Dripper: KONO dripper

Water Temperature: 87～88℃

Dose: 15g

Ratio: 1:15

Grind: Medium grind (Chinese standard 20-mesh sieve pass rate 70%)

Use twice the amount of water as coffee grounds to moisten the coffee bed, forming a dome and let it bloom for 30s. Then use a small water stream to pour in concentric circles from inside to outside until reaching 125g, then pause. Wait for the coffee bed to drop to half the dripper's height, then continue with the same fine stream to pour the third stage to 225g, until all coffee liquid has filtered through, then remove the dripper. Total time is about 2 minutes.

Tasting Notes

Hand-poured Brazil Queen Estate coffee smells of lemon, nuts, and peanuts. The entry presents very mellow nutty, dark chocolate, and caramel flavors with noticeable sweetness. The mouthfeel is as smooth as cream, overall quite rounded.

Professional Exchange and Contact

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style).

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

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473