Costa Rican Coffee Brewing Tutorial: Extraction and Flavor Profile of Costa Rican Mozart Coffee

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Coffee is a globally popular beverage, with beans from different regions exhibiting very distinct characteristics. African coffees feature bright fruit acidity, Asian coffees offer rich, full-bodied flavors, while American coffees present a perfect balance of sweet and tart. If coffee were compared to music on the palate, then coffee from Costa Rica could be considered the musicians' union of the coffee world, as Costa Rica truly has coffee beans named after famous musicians!

The Mozart Connection

Among classical composers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is renowned for bringing immense joy to the world, creating many world-famous works including "The Magic Flute" and "Serenades." Simultaneously, Mozart was also an avid coffee enthusiast who couldn't live without coffee. It was coffee that provided this天才 musician with endless inspiration and motivation, benefiting the spiritual world of people globally. While Mozart's music certainly grows more charming with each listen, this Mozart coffee bean likewise becomes more delightful with each sip.

Costa Rican Coffee Heritage

How could FrontStreet Coffee's bean selection overlook such a charming coffee bean? This Mozart coffee bean originates from a renowned region—the Tarrazú region of Costa Rica. Despite today's Costa Rican coffee being pursued by coffee connoisseurs and beginners alike as representative of "sweet as honey," over three hundred years ago, there were no coffee trees at all. Coffee trees in the Americas appeared because of Europeans, making the Americas another homeland for coffee.

Coffee first appeared in Costa Rica in 1729 when it was introduced from Cuba. This made Costa Rica the first country in Central America to cultivate coffee and the first to grow coffee for commercial purposes. By 1820, the first batch of coffee was exported to Colombia and Chile.

In 1854, with the assistance of Captain William Lyon of the British merchant ship "Monarch," an import-export company successfully shipped 100 pounds of coffee to London, where it became an instant sensation and was hailed by British nobility as the "golden bean" from Costa Rica. To maintain superior coffee bean quality, Costa Rica even enacted laws allowing only the cultivation of Arabica beans, with Robusta being considered "prohibited" within the country.

Mozart Coffee Bean Details

FrontStreet Coffee Costa Rica Musician Series Mozart Coffee Bean

Region: Costa Rica Tarrazú Region

Estate: Canet

Altitude: 1980 meters

Variety: Caturra, Catuai

Processing: Raisin Honey Process

Tarrazú is located south of the country's capital, San Jose, and is the main coffee-producing region of Costa Rica and one of the world's major coffee-producing areas. With elevations ranging from 1,200-1,700 meters, the coffee-growing soil is extremely fertile with good drainage.

On the walls of FrontStreet Coffee's storefront hang jute bags containing green beans from the Musician Series, prominently displaying the green bean brand identifier—BLACK GOLD. The Black Gold brand has its own coffee processing facilities in Costa Rica, executing different processing methods in small batches according to the coffee terroir characteristics of each region. A processing facility named "Canet" belongs to the Black Gold brand.

Canet covers only 5 hectares and is located in the San Marcos town of the Tarrazú region. Canet is situated in the highest coffee-growing area of Costa Rica's Tarrazú region, which is also the most intensive fruit-growing area in Costa Rica. The Canet processing facility was formerly a red cherry collection station in that area. During the coffee harvest season, farmers would sell bucket after bucket of ripe coffee cherries to the collection station, then bid farewell to their hard labor, going out to work after the harvest season ended to supplement their meager income.

Raisin Honey Processing

This Mozart coffee bean from FrontStreet Coffee uses the raisin honey processing method, which preserves 100% mucilage and involves zero water processing. On the day mature coffee cherries are harvested, they are poured into large water tanks, where fully ripe fruits sink to the bottom; underdeveloped or overripe fruits float to the surface and must be removed. The selected coffee fruits are placed on raised beds to dry for at least three days, then the cherry skin is removed, preserving the mucilage before further drying.

To preserve more sugar content, as much pulp and mucilage layer as possible is retained, which increases the difficulty of the honey processing method and requires strict timing control. Coffee beans processed this way retain 100% of the mucilage layer, allowing more sugar substances to penetrate the green coffee beans, resulting in quite noticeable sweetness. Through cupping, FrontStreet Coffee discovered that this coffee bean has white wine mouthfeel and balanced acidity, with rich fermentation notes and outstanding floral and fruit aromas.

Roasting and Brewing

When FrontStreet Coffee's roasters received these green coffee beans, considering the need to highlight their complex floral and fruit aromas, outstanding sweetness, and fermented sauce notes, they adopted a medium roast level.

After grinding, these coffee beans release orange and complex floral aromas. When brewing this coffee bean, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using 91°C hot water, Hario V60 dripper, and medium-fine grind size.

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 91°C

Dose: 15 grams

Ratio: 1:15

Grind Size: 80% pass-through through China standard #20 sieve

Regular readers of FrontStreet Coffee articles may have noticed that FrontStreet Coffee uses a three-pour method for every coffee bean's brewing. Compared to the single-pour method, the three-pour method can give coffee richer layering; compared to some methods used by international coffee brewing competition competitors, such as four-six pouring or stirring methods, it's much simpler and easier to master.

Pour the coffee grounds into the filter paper-lined dripper and level them. Pour 30 grams of hot water in a "の" shape to fully wet the coffee grounds and let bloom for 30 seconds. Starting from the center, pour in a small stream and slowly spiral out to 125 grams. When the water level in the dripper is about to expose the coffee bed, continue spiraling to 225 grams. When all water has dripped into the server below, remove the dripper. Total extraction time is approximately 2 minutes.

Using the above brewing parameters, FrontStreet Coffee describes the flavor of this Mozart coffee bean as: complex floral and fermented sauce notes on entry, with raisin-like and preserved fruit sweetness, berry-like acidity, and sucrose-like aftertaste.

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473