Costa Rica Musician Series Bahia Coffee Bean Flavor Profile How to Brew Raisin Honey Process Coffee Beans

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Friends who frequently visit FrontStreet Coffee's physical store or purchase beans on Taobao know that FrontStreet Coffee offers many coffee beans from Central America, among which the Musician Series from Costa Rica is particularly favored for its special aromas. There is a customer at FrontStreet Coffee who visits the store periodically to order a cup of Costa Rican Bach pour-over coffee. This Bach coffee bean features the familiar sausage flavor cherished by Cantonese people, thanks to the raisin honey processing method. Can sausage flavor be paired with coffee? FrontStreet Coffee encounters many people who have this question before trying this Bach coffee for the first time, but when they actually taste it, they not only accept it but also fall in love with this bean.

FrontStreet Coffee Costa Rica Bach Coffee Bean

Costa Rica Canet Musician Bach
Country: Costa Rica
Region: Tarrazú
Altitude: 1950 meters
Grade: SHB
Variety: Caturra
Processing: Raisin Honey Process

Located in the Central American isthmus, Costa Rica is simultaneously influenced by Pacific and Atlantic ocean currents and sea winds that regulate its climate. The country features numerous towering volcanoes reaching 2000 meters in altitude, allowing coffee cherries to grow slowly in fertile volcanic ash soil and high-altitude cool environments, cultivating coffee beans with complete and rich flavors.

Costa Rica has two seasons: the dry season from December to April, when coffee is harvested, and the wet (rainy) season from May to November, when coffee is planted and grows. In recent years, many micro-processing mills have been established. Since water consumption is only 5% of that required by traditional washed processing mills, and they don't need large water tanks and drying fields, the required investment is relatively much smaller. "Honey processed coffee" with low acidity, improved complexity, and rich sweet fragrance has become a competitive target in the coffee industry in recent years.

Just like the washed Yirgacheffe that is famous for its processing method, FrontStreet Coffee has also launched a red honey processed Yirgacheffe, adding sweetness and fermentation notes to the classic Yirgacheffe flavor, with relatively fuller mouthfeel and richer layers.

Costa Rican Coffee Regions

Costa Rica began growing coffee as early as two hundred years ago, first planted on the slopes of Poas and Barva volcanoes, which is what we now call the Central Valley.

Currently, Costa Rica has 7 main producing regions: Western Valley (Valley Central Occidental), Central Valley (Valley Central), Tarrazú, Tres Ríos, Orosi, Brunca, and Turrialba.

Tarrazú is one of Costa Rica's most important coffee-producing areas. The Tarrazú region has a certain history of coffee production and has once received favor and recognition from the British royal family, and was even praised in the Pope's speech.

Among FrontStreet Coffee's daily bean series, there is a Costa Rican Tarrazú coffee bean. FrontStreet Coffee's daily beans cover major coffee-producing regions and serve as the "face" of regional coffee beans, as their basic regional flavors are more recognizable, while also being affordable, high-value coffee beans. When FrontStreet Coffee selects a "daily bean" for listing, it carefully selects the beans that best represent the original local flavors from each major region. In packaging, FrontStreet Coffee introduces them to everyone at a 100g trial price. The significance of FrontStreet Coffee's daily beans is that everyone can identify the basic flavors of major regions at a low price, such as the lemon acidity of Yirgacheffe, the herbal notes of Mandheling, the nutty chocolate flavors of Brazil and Colombia, and so on.

Canet Estate

Canet Estate is located in the highest altitude area of the Tarrazú region and is the most densely fruit-growing area in Costa Rica. Canet Estate primarily grows passion fruit, with coffee being quite scarce. Only a specific area is planted with coffee, receiving special care. All coffee cherries are hand-picked, harvesting only mature red cherries, but after harvesting and before processing, they undergo another screening process to remove underripe or overripe beans.

The origin of Canet Estate's Musician Series comes from the owner's love for classical music, so all coffee beans produced by this estate are named after musicians.

Canet Estate primarily produces two varieties of coffee beans: Caturra and Catuai, using raisin honey processing and washed processing to produce the world-renowned Musician Series coffee beans, named after "Beethoven," "Bach," "Chopin," and "Mozart." With altitudes ranging between 1700-1950 meters, they are all SHB grade high-altitude strictly hard beans, with sweet flavors, rich fruit aromas, wine notes, and strong tea fragrances.

Processing Method

The raisin honey processing method retains 100% mucilage and uses zero water processing. 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, 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, during which the surface of the coffee fruit will form wrinkles, similar to raisins. Then the cherry skin is removed, retaining the mucilage before further drying. At this stage, climate 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 allow for slow drying to ensure uniform fermentation of the coffee, but not too slow to avoid over-fermentation.

Coffee Bean Varieties

Caturra is a relatively common variety among American beans, especially in Central America. Caturra is a variant of Bourbon, discovered in Brazil in 1937. It has better production capacity and disease resistance than Bourbon, with shorter plants that facilitate harvesting, strong adaptability, and no need for shade trees - it can thrive directly under the scorching sun, commonly known as "Sun Coffee." Caturra is suitable for cultivation from low altitudes of 700 meters to high altitudes of 1700 meters, showing strong altitude adaptability, but the higher the altitude, the better the flavor, while production capacity relatively decreases - this is the fate of specialty coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee's Bach green coffee beans appear yellow-green, typical of honey processed coffee beans, with a fresh citrus fruit aroma and light fermented fruit fragrance.

Roasting Analysis

FrontStreet Coffee uses a Yangjia 800N semi-direct flame roaster (300g batch size)

FrontStreet Coffee's specific roasting approach is: preheat the roaster to 200°C before loading, adjust heat to 160, damper to 3, return temperature point at 1'36", maintain heat; at 140°C, keep heat at 160, open damper to 4. At 4'50", the beans turn yellow, grassy smell disappears, entering the dehydration stage, at 166°C, reduce heat to 135, keep damper at 4.

At 8'05", dehydration is complete, wrinkles and black markings appear on the bean surface, toast aroma turns to coffee aroma, heralding the first crack. At this point, pay attention to listen for the sound of first crack. At 8'38", first crack begins, damper fully opened to 5, heat unchanged. Development time after first crack: 1'45", drop at 193.8°C.

Cupping Flavors

Dry aroma: Rose floral, berries
Wet aroma: Fermented fruit, cocoa
Entry: Berries, strawberry, citrus, cream, cocoa, caramel, tropical fruits

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Suggestions for Costa Rica Bach Coffee Bean

FrontStreet Coffee's brewing parameters are: V60 dripper, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, 90°C water temperature, 15g coffee dose, grind size (80% pass-through rate on China standard 20 mesh sieve)

One point to note before brewing is the freshness of the beans. Before listing a coffee bean, FrontStreet Coffee goes through a series of processes, including roasting adjustments, cupping, and brewing, to ensure the bean's flavor represents its regional characteristics and has its unique personality. This is also why FrontStreet Coffee stocks so many different coffee beans, yet none are identical. Returning to bean freshness, because the beans are fresh, the brewed flavor best represents the bean's inherent characteristics. Many people think that freshly ground coffee represents freshness, but this is actually not the case.

In reality, to experience the aroma of coffee, it's not enough to have freshly ground beans; the roasting time of the coffee beans must also meet certain requirements. Whether in FrontStreet Coffee's physical stores or online Taobao shop, we provide freshly roasted coffee beans. Unless customers specifically request ground shipping, we will grind according to the customer's usage method (espresso or pour-over).

FrontStreet Coffee uses a segmented extraction technique: 30g of water for bloom for 30 seconds, slow center pour to 125g segment, when water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, use a slightly larger water flow to pour until reaching 225g, ending the brew. Total extraction time is 2 minutes (including bloom time).

Costa Rica Bach Coffee Bean Flavor: Smells like rice wine fermentation aroma, tastes with the sweet and sour notes of mature tropical fruits and berries, nut, cocoa, and cream flavors, with caramel in the aftertaste and a light floral finish.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473