Flavor Profile and Taste Description of Brazil Cerrado Queen's Estate Bourbon Variety Coffee Beans with Special Processing Methods

Brazilian Coffee Characteristics

Among many specialty coffees, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian coffee doesn't have particularly outstanding advantages nor obvious flaws. It features a balanced taste, low acidity, moderate body, and chocolate and nutty flavor notes. It is precisely these balanced characteristics, combined with excellent quality and affordable price, that make it widely used in espresso coffee bean formulations. FrontStreet Coffee's menu includes three self-roasted FrontStreet Coffee espresso blends that all contain Brazilian beans.

Brazil cleverly utilizes the mild taste characteristics of FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian coffee beans, dividing green coffee beans into five grades to interpret the gentle, smooth Brazilian soft bean aesthetics: Strictly Soft, Soft, Softish, Hardish, and Rioy, grading the beans by quality. Premium Brazilian coffee should embody the subtle sweetness of nuts, lower acidity, good viscosity, and a smooth mouthfeel. The beans from the Cerrado region are renowned for precisely these flavor characteristics. Most coffee from this region is exported to European and American countries, making Cerrado coffee synonymous with Brazilian specialty coffee.

Brazil Cerrado Region

The Cerrado region is located in the northwestern part of Minas Gerais state, one of Brazil's seven major coffee-producing states. It produces an average of 5 million bags of coffee beans annually—accounting for a quarter of the state's production and 12.7% of Brazil's total output. As the first coffee region in Brazil to obtain designation of origin in specialty coffee, Cerrado annually represents the coffee produced by Minas Gerais state and has won numerous awards in Brazil's Cup of Excellence (COE) competition.

While most Brazilian coffee regions compete based on quantity, the Cerrado region's excellent soil and climate are inherent advantages. The average annual temperature is around 21 degrees Celsius, and the local soil is very fertile, rich in minerals that allow coffee beans to receive ample nutrition. Additionally, this region has distinct wet and dry seasons, with coffee cherries typically maturing between May and September, which makes Cerrado coffee stand out among many Brazilian coffee beans.

Semi-Washed Processing Method

The premium flavor of Cerrado coffee is also attributed to the semi-washed processing method, also known as pulped natural. Located in the tropical zone of Brazil, the harvest season coincides with the dry season, making coffee cherries very suitable for direct dehydration and drying through sun exposure. However, traditional natural processing is quite crude, with coffee cherries being dumped directly on muddy ground after picking, resulting in coffee that often carries earthy flavors. To improve coffee quality, Brazil developed and advocated for the use of semi-washed processing for green beans in the 1990s, a method介于between natural and washed processing.

Processing steps: After picking, coffee cherries are first sorted to remove leaves, stones, and other impurities, then poured into water tanks where flotation is used to remove underripe fruits. The outer skin, pulp, and part of the mucilage layer are removed by machine, then washed for an hour. Due to the short soaking and fermentation time, the mucilage is not easily completely washed away. The parchment beans with some mucilage are spread on drying patios to dry. The semi-washed method not only saves water resources but also reduces labor costs, and compared to traditional natural drying, it takes less time, making it widely used in Brazil.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian Cerrado daily beans use semi-washed processing, with multi-stage screening that greatly improves the cleanliness of the coffee beans. Another FrontStreet Coffee offering—FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian Queen Estate coffee beans—uses refined small-batch natural processing. Large-scale production might result in over-fermentation due to insufficient turning, creating undesirable fermentation flavors. The Queen Estate's entire drying process for green beans is conducted in small batches on African raised beds, thus avoiding earthy and fermentation flavors, with a sweetness that surpasses traditional semi-washed processing.

Bourbon Variety

Bourbon is derived from the ancient Typica variety, featuring round-shaped beans. It was introduced to Brazil in 1927 and subsequently spread to various countries in Central and South America. Although its yield is not high, compared to the delicate Typica variety, Bourbon has better resistance to leaf rust disease. Bourbon coffee grown at high altitudes features rich and delicate flavors, aromatic fragrance, and smooth acidity. The Bourbon cherries we typically see transition from green to light yellow, orange-yellow, red, and finally to fully ripe dark red, which is what we refer to as Red Bourbon.

Brazil also has another Bourbon variety with mature fruits呈现ing orange-yellow—Yellow Bourbon, a unique Bourbon variant exclusive to São Paulo state, Brazil. Yellow Bourbon grown at high altitudes contains high amounts of fructose and can present sweet and juicy flavor profiles. It once swept the Brazil "Super Cup" competition for two consecutive years, nearly sweeping all top three awards and becoming popular in the specialty coffee community! FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian Queen Estate coffee is made from the exquisite Yellow Bourbon variety, while the daily FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian daily beans use the common Red Bourbon variety.

Bourbon Coffee Bean Flavors

The original intention behind FrontStreet Coffee launching the FrontStreet Coffee daily bean series was to help friends who want to understand specialty coffee more quickly recognize classic regional flavors. To present everyone with the unique flavor characteristics of each region, FrontStreet Coffee has selected multiple representative regions, covering various coffee varieties, and adopted appropriate roasting levels to present their regional flavors, such as the chocolate richness of FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian Red Bourbon coffee, the jasmine fragrance of FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopian washed Yirgacheffe, the herbal spice notes of FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Mandheling, and the elegant, clean dark chocolate aroma of FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian Huilan coffee... Additionally, FrontStreet Coffee hopes everyone has a better brewing experience and can taste the aforementioned characteristics, so FrontStreet Coffee ensures only coffee beans roasted within 5 days are shipped, ensuring they are still in their optimal tasting period when received.

Due to the higher density and glucose content of high-altitude Bourbon coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee's roasting approach is to highlight the classic rich aroma of Brazilian coffee while showcasing Bourbon's inherent sweetness. After multiple experiments and cupping comparisons, both of FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian coffee beans on FrontStreet Coffee's menu use medium-dark roasting. Below, FrontStreet Coffee will brew these two coffees. If you want to understand Brazilian coffee flavors, you can refer to FrontStreet Coffee's pour-over approach.

Medium roasted coffee significantly changes the internal structure of the beans, making them more porous, and when ground into coffee powder, they have stronger water absorption. If brewing parameters are not adjusted properly, the coffee can easily become over-extracted and bitter. To achieve sufficient aroma without over-extraction, it's necessary to reduce the extraction rate. FrontStreet Coffee will use lower water temperature and coarser grind size to reduce the release of large bitter molecules from the coffee. Combined with using a KONO dripper for extraction, this enhances the coffee's body and roundness.

Pour-over Parameters:

Water temperature: 87-88°C
Medium grind (70% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)
Coffee powder: 15 grams
Powder to water ratio: 1:15
Three-stage pouring method

Use twice the amount of water as the coffee powder to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome and let it bloom for 30 seconds. Then, using a small water stream, pour in a circular motion from inside to outside until reaching 125g for the first stage. Wait until the coffee bed drops to half the height of the dripper, then continue with the same fine stream to pour the third stage to 225g. Remove the dripper once all coffee liquid has filtered through, taking about 2 minutes. Finally, shake the coffee in the server to evenly distribute before enjoying~

The pour-over FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian Cerrado daily beans have an overall clean taste, with full nutty and caramel aromas, and a sweet chocolate aftertaste, with all flavors well-balanced.

The pour-over FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon coffee presents aromas of dark chocolate, cream, and nuts, with an entrance as refreshingly sweet as sugarcane, clear flavors, and a long-lasting aftertaste in the mouth.

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat account of FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), 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