Flavor Profile Introduction of Costa Rica Tarrazu Coffee Bean Region - Honey Process Pour-Over Coffee Taste

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Although many baristas at FrontStreet Coffee are enthusiastic about the clean, refined, and unadorned qualities of washed coffee beans, we must admit that the current consumption trend leans toward sweet flavors. Costa Rican coffee, renowned worldwide for its honey processing, has become FrontStreet Coffee's signature attraction. With its balanced sweet and sour profile and intense fermented aromas, it's truly captivating. For instance, FrontStreet Coffee's Strawberry Sugar Coffee and FrontStreet Coffee's Mozart Coffee are both famous representatives in the coffee community, suitable for various brewing methods including pour-over, cold brew, moka pot, and drip coffee machines. Everyone can purchase these at FrontStreet Coffee's Taobao store or FrontStreet Coffee's Tmall flagship store.

FrontStreet Coffee's Signature: Costa Rican Coffee

Today, let's explore FrontStreet Coffee's signature attraction—Costa Rican coffee. According to FrontStreet Coffee's research, Costa Rica's coffee cultivation history isn't particularly long, tracing back about three hundred years. However, Costa Rican coffee farmers greatly cherish and value coffee cultivation techniques, forming a unique coffee culture. Costa Rica maintains meticulous management and strict regulations in coffee cultivation, while continuously improving coffee processing methods. This has made their coffee industry one of the best-organized industries in the world today.

In 1830, Costa Rica began introducing washed processing methods. Gradually, the quality of washed coffee effectively improved. To enhance coffee quality and increase sales, Costa Rican coffee farmers started experimenting with new processing methods. During this innovation process, farmers discovered a processing method介于日晒和水洗之间, which significantly reduced coffee processing time. This is how honey processing was born.

The process involves placing selected coffee cherries into a depulper to remove the skin and pulp while preserving the mucilage, then allowing it to dry naturally in shaded, ventilated areas for typically 12-14 days. Finally, the moisture content and fermentation level of the green coffee beans are checked. The retention of mucilage makes honey-processed coffee beans sweet as honey, which explains why Costa Rican coffee has garnered such a loyal following. The mucilage content and fermentation time also affect the coffee's appearance and flavor profile. Therefore, Costa Rica locally categorizes honey-processed coffee into black honey, gold honey, red honey, yellow honey, and white honey.

Among FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rican coffee beans, raisin honey processing is predominant. This differs from the conventional honey processing mentioned above. Raisin honey processing involves first sun-drying the coffee cherries until they become wrinkled like raisins, then removing the skin and pulp while preserving 100% of the mucilage for a second drying until the coffee's moisture content reaches 11%.

FrontStreet Coffee's Classic: Costa Rican Milasú

Let's take FrontStreet Coffee's most classic Costa Rican Milasú as an example:

FrontStreet Coffee Costa Rican Milasú Coffee Beans

• Origin: Costa Rica
• Region: Tarrazú
• Estate: Milasú Estate
• Altitude: 1700 meters
• Processing: Raisin Honey Process
• Varieties: Geisha, ET47, SL28, MAICO

This Geisha blend coffee comes from the Tarrazú region of Costa Rica. It's worth noting that although Costa Rican coffee is divided into eight producing regions—West Valley, Central Valley, Tarrazú, Tres Rios, Orosi, Brunca, Turrialba, and Guanacaste—the Tarrazú region accounts for approximately 35% of Costa Rica's total coffee production.

Therefore, if you're observant, you'll notice that nearly half of FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rican coffee comes from the Tarrazú region, including the famous Musician Series coffees: Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. The Tarrazú region is Costa Rica's most important and highest-quality specialty coffee producing area. Besides micro-lots, Tarrazú also produces large quantities of exceptionally high-quality bulk coffee. Located in the picturesque Central Valley of Costa Rica, Tarrazú features distinct dry and rainy seasons, perfect soil composition and topography, and elevations between 1200-1800 meters. All these factors make this region a truly perfect cultivation area for Arabica coffee. The name "Tarrazú" originates from the ancient Huetar indigenous people who once settled here.

According to FrontStreet Coffee's research, Costa Rican green coffee beans are typically graded based on both altitude and defect standards. Altitude grading includes SHB (Strictly Hard Bean) and HB (Hard Bean), while defect grading includes EP (European Preparation) and USP (U.S. Preparation) standards. EP requires lower defect rates compared to USP. This Costa Rican SHB EP represents high-grade bulk coffee from Costa Rica. Of course, most coffee circulating in the market today consists of high-grade beans, as better quality brings greater profits to green bean suppliers and coffee farmers, while also enhancing Costa Rican coffee's reputation.

Why Costa Rican Coffee Excels

Have you ever wondered why coffee grows so exceptionally well in Costa Rica? Let's explore the favorable conditions for coffee cultivation in Costa Rica with FrontStreet Coffee. Costa Rica enjoys a mild climate, abundant rainfall in mountainous areas, and fertile volcanic soil—creating an ideal environment for coffee growth. Beyond these excellent growing conditions, the Costa Rican government showed great foresight in the early 19th century by vigorously developing the coffee cultivation industry. To date, Costa Rican coffee has surpassed cacao, tobacco, and sugar to become an important economic crop and primary source of fiscal revenue. Costa Rican Tarrazú coffee beans, due to their high latitude and altitude geographical factors, experience significant day-night temperature variations, resulting in rich flavor compounds with good acidity that's also very smooth and balanced. The local volcanic soil is exceptionally fertile with good drainage, providing essential conditions for high-quality coffee.

The Milasú Estate Story

So what about FrontStreet Coffee's Milasú? According to FrontStreet Coffee's information, these coffee beans from the Tarrazú Milasú Estate are grown at an altitude of approximately 1,700 meters. The estate owner Esteban is a coffee doctor and a member of the renowned La Candelilla estate family, excelling in cultivation and green bean processing research and development.

From the green bean information above, you can see this is a blended variety coffee. FrontStreet Coffee would like to introduce the most famous among them—Geisha: Geisha was discovered in 1931 in the Geisha forest of Ethiopia, later sent to Kenya's Coffee Research Institute, introduced to Uganda and Tanzania in 1936, and brought to Costa Rica in 1953. Geisha coffee is an original variety within the Arabica species, particularly particular about growing conditions, requiring high altitude, cloud shade, fertile soil, and sufficient accumulated temperature. Unlike other green beans that have obvious grassy aromas, these raisin honey-processed coffee beans are bursting with floral aromas and abundant sweet berry flavors. If you don't believe it, come brew some with FrontStreet Coffee and try it yourself!

Brewing Parameters

• Dripper: V60
• Water Temperature: 90°C
• Dose: 15 grams
• Ratio: 1:15
• Grind Size: 78% pass-through rate on Chinese standard #20 sieve

Multi-stage Extraction:

Use 30g of water for 30-second blooming, then continue with small circular pours to 125g for the first stage. When the water level drops to just expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. When the water level drops to just expose the coffee bed again, remove the dripper. (Timing starts from the beginning of blooming) Total extraction time: 2 minutes.

Important Notice :

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Tel:020 38364473