Starbucks Blue Mountain Coffee with Rich Aroma and Non-Acidic Taste: Starbucks Papua New Guinea Reserve

Papua New Guinea Coffee: The Island Paradise of Premium Arabica

For more specialty coffee knowledge, please follow our official WeChat account: FrontStreet Coffee

In recent years, Papua New Guinea coffee has emerged with its unique high-quality washed Arabica beans, representing Oceania in the world specialty coffee arena. Even Starbucks Reserve has gradually featured beans from this island nation. It's worth noting that PNG beans have long been known as "Little Blue Mountain," reflecting their exceptional quality. FrontStreet Coffee believes that coffee from this country earned the "Little Blue Mountain" moniker because Typica was introduced from Jamaica and cultivated in similar island-type climate and high-altitude conditions.

Intrigued by the "Little Blue Mountain" reputation, FrontStreet Coffee sourced a batch of Bird of Paradise coffee from Papua New Guinea. Through roasting, cupping, and brewing, we discovered that PNG produces the brightest and cleanest flavored coffee in Asia, with moderate acidity and quite mellow mouthfeel, displaying the balanced characteristics reminiscent of Blue Mountain coffee.

Geography of Papua New Guinea

New Guinea is an island nation located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, bordered by Indonesia to the west and near the Solomon Islands to the east. The western half of New Guinea Island belongs to Indonesia, while the eastern half constitutes Papua New Guinea. The local island-type climate is characterized by high temperatures and high humidity year-round. The average annual temperature in the lowlands is about 24°C, with temperatures decreasing rapidly as altitude increases, and heavy rains in winter.

With tropical rainforests, volcanic rocks, and plateau terrain at elevations between 1,200-2,500 meters, Papua New Guinea is a paradise for coffee cultivation. The predominantly highland terrain of PNG supports cultivation of multiple coffee varieties. Coffee is grown above 1,300 meters using organic and shade-grown cultivation methods. These advantages produce coffee beans with rich mouthfeel, featuring nutty and fruity flavors. FrontStreet Coffee notes that PNG coffee's regional flavor profile differs from Indonesian coffee beans in Asia, which typically display spicy, herbal, and deep notes. Instead, PNG coffee offers brightness, balanced sweet-tart notes, and floral-fruit aromas, more closely resembling South American flavors.

Coffee Cultivation in Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea is an island nation in Oceania. In Malay, "Papua" means "curly hair." Legend has it that in 1545, explorer Retes reached the island and discovered that most islanders had curly hair, thus naming it "Island of Curly-haired People," a name that has endured. Located east of Indonesia, PNG has a typical island-type climate, situated between the equator and 10° south latitude, with tropical rainforests, volcanic rocks, and plateau terrain at elevations of 1,200-2,500 meters—a true paradise for coffee cultivation.

Local production is relatively modest, with approximately 85% of total coffee production coming from smallholder garden cultivation systems. Small farmers join local cooperatives to share processing facilities. Coffee is PNG's second-largest agricultural export by volume, highlighting the importance of the coffee industry to the national economy. Due to different coffee varieties than Indonesia and higher altitudes than Sumatra, plus washed processing, PNG coffee's terroir expression differs markedly from Indonesia's mellow and deep notes, instead displaying brightness, sweet-tart balance, and floral-fruit aromas similar to South American profiles.

Large plantations typically maintain their own washing stations, allowing smaller individual coffee farmers greater control over quality and flavor expression. Located in the Western Highlands near the Kimel River Valley, Kaimir Estate—like many large farms—has its own washing station. However, it's actually collectively owned by independent coffee farmers from the surrounding Opais people, making it essentially a private cooperative. Due to excellent growing conditions and the processing station's stable quality control procedures, the resulting coffee exhibits lively brightness while preserving the unique flavor characteristics of Papua New Guinea coffee.

Coffee Varieties

Papua New Guinea primarily cultivates Typica. Typica offers elegant flavors but has weaker constitution and lower disease resistance, making it susceptible to leaf rust. FrontStreet Coffee notes that the most distinctive feature of Typica coffee trees is their bronze-colored young leaves, earning them the nickname "red-topped coffee." Typica beans are relatively large, with a tapered conical or slender pointed shape, different from the round-bodied Bourbon variety. Typica coffee has its characteristic clean and subtle flavor profile, balanced characteristics, and high clarity in mouthfeel.

Sigri Estate

After sampling multiple Papua New Guinea coffees, FrontStreet Coffee selected the washed Typica from Sigri Estate. Sigri Estate is home to over 90 different bird species, including Papua New Guinea's national bird—the Bird of Paradise—thus earning Sigri Estate the name "Bird of Paradise Estate."

Sigri Estate's parent company is WR CARPENTER COMPANY-PNG. With approximately 1,000 hectares of Arabica coffee cultivation in Papua New Guinea, Carpenter Company accounts for 80% of the country's tea and coffee exports, making it the largest coffee producer and exporter, shipping about 1.6 million kilograms of high-quality washed Arabica beans annually. Sigri Estate employs natural organic cultivation methods without chemical fertilizers, manually harvesting and selecting fully ripe fruits, processing them on the same day of harvest, using natural pure spring water for washing and fermentation, and natural sun-drying methods to achieve optimal dryness and flavor! After hulling, beans are carefully graded to ensure the best export quality.

Washed Processing Method

After harvesting mature red coffee cherries, they are sent to the estate's own washing station for processing. The local washed processing in Papua New Guinea differs from methods used in Central and South America. They employ three-stage washing fermentation, with each soak lasting approximately 24 hours, using fresh water changes to control coffee flavor. After washing, the parchment beans are hulled and undergo various gradings such as AA, AB, PB (peaberry), etc. This meticulous post-processing method brings bright and delicate fruit acidity to the coffee, with a clean and lingering sweet mouthfeel.

FrontStreet Coffee: Papua New Guinea Bird of Paradise Coffee Beans

Origin: Papua New Guinea
Estate: Sigri Bird of Paradise Estate
Altitude: 1600-1800m
Processing: Washed
Variety: Typica
Grade: AA

FrontStreet Coffee Green Bean Analysis

FrontStreet Coffee observed that Sigri Bird of Paradise beans are large, complete, and emerald green. Typica is a low-density bean variety, so to highlight the bean's natural refreshing acidity and fruity aromas, we focus on heat adjustment after the first crack.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Experience

FrontStreet Coffee selected this coffee bean for its grapefruit acidity, clear and juicy pear mouthfeel, tea-like qualities, and cocoa notes that emerge in the middle to later stages. Both cleanliness and balance are at high levels, excellently expressing the characteristic flavors of Papua New Guinea coffee beans. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee adopted medium-dark roasting to highlight cocoa flavors and body while enhancing sweetness and preserving fruity acidity.

Heat the roaster to 170°C, air damper at 3, heat at 140°C, return to temperature at 1'36". At 140°C, open damper to 4. At 6'25", temperature reaches 151°C, bean surface turns yellow, grassy aroma completely disappears, dehydration complete. At 176°C, heat reduced to 110, damper at 4. At 180°C, heat reduced to 90, bean surface shows ugly wrinkles and black spots, toast aroma distinctly transforms to coffee aroma—this can be defined as prelude to first crack. Then heat increases to 183.5°C, first crack begins at 10'08", damper fully open. At 188°C, reduce heat to 60, damper fully open (heat adjustment must be very careful—cannot be so low as to stop crack sounds, control post-crack temperature rise within 6°C). First crack development time: 3'00", drop at 198.5°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Cupping Report

FrontStreet Coffee conducts cupping within 8-24 hours of roasting sample beans. FrontStreet Coffee's baristas typically use 200ml ceramic cupping bowls marked with 150ml and 200ml measurement lines, following SCAA standards. Water TDS is around 150ppm—too low TDS tends to cause over-extraction, while too high affects mouthfeel and causes under-extraction. Cupping water temperature is 94°C. Cupping grind follows SCAA standards, controlled to 70%-75% pass-through rate through a #20 standard sieve (0.85mm). Ratio: 11g coffee powder to 200ml hot water, i.e., 1:18.18, resulting in extraction concentration within the 1.15%-1.35% Golden Cup range. Steeping time: 4 minutes.

Dry Aroma: Caramel, citrus
Wet Aroma: Herbal
Flavor: Nuts, cocoa, gentle fruit acidity, cream, caramel

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Experience

Dripper: Kono
Dose: 15g, Water ratio: 1:15
Grind: Medium-coarse/coarse sugar size (75% pass-through #20 sieve)
Water Temperature: 89°C

*Regarding grind size, FrontStreet Coffee determines this through sieving. Based on SCAA's grind recommendations for pour-over coffee, FrontStreet Coffee combines practical verification—using different grind sizes for brewing produces distinctly different results, and each coffee bean variety requires different grind settings, which is the purpose of sieving. If you don't have a sieve at home, FrontStreet Coffee suggests observing flow rate to judge grind: too fast means too coarse, too slow means too fine.

FrontStreet Coffee uses staged extraction, also called three-stage brewing: Bloom with 30g water for 30 seconds, continue small circular pour to 125g for stage division. When water level drops to just above the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. When water level drops to just above the coffee bed again, remove the dripper (timing from bloom start). Total extraction time: 2'00".

Brewing Flavor:

Sweetness of toasted bread, nutty sweetness, subtle fruit acidity creating a pleasant layered effect, with particularly distinctive spiced sweetness in the aftertaste. The flavor tastes rich and balanced, with sweet notes and bright acidity, carrying fruit-like aromatics.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473