How to Brew Brazilian Coffee Beans for Great Taste: Growing Regions, Varieties, and Flavor Characteristics

We often say that the higher the altitude, the denser the coffee beans, and the more diverse and rich the coffee flavor. Brazil's growing regions generally have lower altitudes, flat terrain, and lack the support of microclimates, making them more suitable for large-scale cultivation of soft beans with mellow flavors. Low acidity, balanced taste, and affordable prices make Brazilian coffee a top choice for many specialty espresso blends. Three of FrontStreet Coffee's four house-roasted espresso blends contain Brazilian beans. The addition of Brazilian beans not only provides chocolate and cream aromas but also creates a balanced profile that contributes to extraction stability.

Brazilian Coffee Growing Regions

Since the 1970s, Brazil has had over three hundred years of coffee cultivation history, with coffee becoming the main local economic source and currently the world's largest coffee producer. Brazil's growing area is much larger than other countries. Currently, Brazil has 17 states producing coffee, mainly concentrated in the southeastern region. The four major producing regions, led by Minas Gerais, account for up to 90% of the country's total annual coffee production. The coffee cultivation area in Minas Gerais alone reaches 1.22 million hectares, equivalent to the entire coffee cultivation area of Colombia.

When it comes to representative specialty coffee regions in Brazil, Cerrado and Sul de Minas in Minas Gerais, as well as Mogiana in São Paulo, are the most famous. The coffee market has summarized a pattern: the amount of Brazilian coffee production depends on whether Minas Gerais has a bountiful harvest or a poor one, and the harvest volume of Minas Gerais depends on Sul de Minas, Cerrado, and Mogiana.

The Cerrado growing region, named after the Cerrado savanna, specifically refers to the Cerrado area in the western part of Minas Gerais state. The flat terrain and concentrated harvest season are very suitable for large-scale management and harvesting. Coupled with high altitudes above 1000 meters and fertile soil, many exporters identified this treasure land early on and invested in coffee farms here, with almost all occupying more than 10 hectares.

Sul de Minas has altitudes above 1100 meters, with rolling hills and piedmont slopes, rich topography, distinct wet and dry seasons, large day-night temperature differences, and abundant microclimates, making it suitable for cultivating elegant-flavored Bourbon and Yellow Bourbon varieties. It naturally became the main region for specialty coffee.

Mogiana is close to Sul de Minas, where coffee is mostly grown among shrubs, grasslands, and vegetation. The local fertile red volcanic soil allows coffee cherries to absorb sufficient nutrients and develop full aromas. Here, some farms stick to traditional operational methods while others have adopted modern standardized management practices, greatly improving local coffee quality. FrontStreet Coffee has tasted a unique sugarcane sweetness in coffee from this region that is not found in other areas, along with fruity and chocolate flavors.

The vast and resource-rich Brazil produces a wide variety of coffee types. FrontStreet Coffee conducted cupping comparisons of Brazilian beans from multiple regions and different varieties, finally selecting the pulped natural Red Bourbon coffee from Cerrado as Brazil's representative. This sweet and mellow FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Cerrado coffee was added to FrontStreet Coffee's daily bean series, allowing everyone to experience Brazilian flavors.

Brazil Bourbon Varieties

Currently, Bourbon, Mundo Novo, and Catuai are the main coffee varieties in Brazil, with Bourbon having the longest history, derived from a genetic mutation of Typica. Common Bourbon coffee cherries turn from green to light yellow, orange-yellow, red, and finally to fully ripe dark red, which we refer to as Red Bourbon. Red Bourbon coffee grown at high altitudes has balanced flavors, rich aromas, and smooth acidity. FrontStreet Coffee's daily beans are selected from Red Bourbon.

The cherries don't show cherry-red color when ripe but instead appear yellow, discovered in 1930. The "yellow" of Yellow Bourbon is due to genetic color selection. When grown in high-altitude areas, Yellow Bourbon contains high amounts of fructose and can present sweet and juicy flavors. It once swept the Brazil Cup of Excellence competition for two consecutive years, almost winning all top three prizes and taking the specialty coffee world by storm! FrontStreet Coffee's Yellow Bourbon from Queen Farm in Brazil, after roasting, presents cream and peanut aromas with sugarcane sweetness.

Brazil Pulped Natural

Brazil's green coffee processing methods include natural, pulped natural, and washed, with usage based on local climate conditions.

Before 1990, Brazil almost exclusively used rough natural processing methods, dumping coffee cherries onto concrete grounds for sun drying until dry. Coffee was prone to earthy off-flavors and unpleasant over-fermentation, greatly affecting Brazilian coffee quality. In 1990, Brazil's coffee research institutions developed the pulped natural method based on local arid climate characteristics. Before drying the coffee cherries, the pulp and skin are removed, leaving only a thin mucilage layer for 1-3 days of sun exposure, followed by machine drying to 12% moisture content, then placed in storage containers for maturation. This not only shortened processing time but also reduced negative flavors from the processing process, significantly improving Brazilian bean quality.

Of course, besides the efficiency-oriented pulped natural coffee, some places in Brazil still preserve traditional natural processing methods. The FrontStreet Coffee Natural Queen Farm on FrontStreet Coffee's bean list pours cherries into water tanks before drying, removing insufficiently ripe cherries through flotation. To avoid earthy and fermented flavors, Queen Farm spreads coffee cherries on African raised beds throughout the process, arranging personnel to regularly turn them to reduce uneven heating, maintaining the coffee's cleanliness as much as possible.

How to Brew FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian Coffee for Best Taste?

As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above, Brazilian coffee has nutty and peanut flavors, with chocolate sweetness, and a rich, solid mouthfeel. The mellow taste can restore authentic Brazilian flavors even with simple brewing methods. FrontStreet Coffee's favorite way to present it is through pour-over. Here, FrontStreet Coffee will use FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Cerrado daily beans as an example to extract a cup of Brazilian pour-over coffee for tasting.

For coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using beans within their optimal flavor period. If the roast date has exceeded a month, some aromas may have dissipated, and woody flavors might even develop. Coffee beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are roasted within 5 days, so when everyone receives them, they should be at the most aromatic flavor stage.

When brewing coffee with different roast levels, FrontStreet Coffee chooses corresponding brewing parameters. For example, the FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Cerrado beans being brewed today are medium-dark roast, with more caramelization reactions than light-roast beans, making them more likely to release bitter large molecular compounds. To avoid extracting excessive off-flavors, FrontStreet Coffee reduces the water temperature slightly. The brewing water temperature for light roast coffee is 91-93°C, while FrontStreet Coffee recommends 87-88°C for medium-dark roast beans. The finer the grind, the more soluble substances are released from the coffee in the same extraction time. To avoid over-extraction, FrontStreet Coffee adjusts the grind to be coarser, using medium grind - EK43s setting 10.5 in the shop, with 75% pass-through rate on China standard sieves.

Medium-dark roast beans mainly present a rich and rounded mouthfeel. For this characteristic, FrontStreet Coffee chooses the KONO dripper with slower flow rate for extraction. The upper part of the KONO has a smooth curved surface, while the lower part has guide ribs extending one-third of the length. This allows the filter paper to fit more closely with the dripper, restricting upward airflow and forcing hot water to flow downward, creating a siphon-like extraction effect that releases more aromatic substances from the coffee grounds. It's suitable for brewing medium-dark roast beans like FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Queen Farm and FrontStreet Coffee Blue Mountain coffee.

Dripper: KONO dripper
Water temperature: 87-88°C
Coffee amount: 15 grams
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
Grind size: Medium grind (75% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)

Use twice the weight of coffee in water to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome and bloom for 30 seconds. Then use a small water flow to pour in circles from inside out until reaching 125g, then pause. When the coffee bed drops to half the dripper's height, continue with the same fine water flow for the third pour to 225g, until all coffee liquid has filtered through, then remove the dripper. Total time should be about 2 minutes.

FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon Daily Beans: Obvious sweetness upon entry, with faint lemon aroma, containing rich nutty and caramel flavors, with distinct dark chocolate flavors in the finish. The overall experience is quite rounded.

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