Colombian Coffee Brewing: Sharing Pour-Over Ratios and Techniques

Coffee is a craft best learned by tasting widely and comparing notes with other drinkers.

FrontStreet Coffee - Colombia Pour Over Sharing

Nariño Department (NARINO), capital Pasto. The finest varieties are grown in this area and their quality is astonishing, but growing coffee in high-altitude mountain country is extremely demanding. Sitting close to the equator's latitude, warm, humid air from the Pacific keeps the coffee trees growing. The region is characterised by typical small-scale farming, with more than 40,000 coffee growers producing exceptionally high-quality beans, of which 17% are the Castillo variety.

Colombia

Origin: Consaca, Narino, Colombia

Variety: Castillo

Processing Station: El Plan

Altitude: 1,689 meters

Processing Method: Natural Fermentation, Washed and Sun Dried

Pour Over Method: V60 dripper, grind setting BG-6S, water temperature 91°C

Begin with a 30 g bloom for 30 seconds, starting the timer when the water goes in. For the second pour, continue until you reach 125 g, then wait until the water level drops to the point of just exposing the coffee bed. For the third pour, continue until you reach 225 g and stop. Wait again until the water level drops to just expose the bed, then remove the dripper. Total extraction time: 2:00.

In summary: FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research institute devoted to sharing knowledge about coffee. We share without reservation to help more friends fall in love with coffee, and each month we hold three coffee events at a low discount, because FrontStreet Coffee wants more friends to enjoy the best coffee at the lowest possible price. This has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for the past six years.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Colombian coffee covers a lot of ground: it suits espresso blends and pour-over single origins alike, comes in fruity and in full-bodied styles and in aromatic types, so there is something for almost every taste. If you want to understand the origin through a single-origin pour-over, FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Huila is the natural starting point. Huila province, in the southern part of the Central Cordillera, is the country's best-known specialty region: hilly land ringed by mountains, planted above 1,500 meters, where Colombia's most important rivers meet and bring abundant water and humidity. FrontStreet's washed Huila is roasted medium-dark, bringing out dark chocolate and nutty sweetness, moderate oils and a full body. It is suited to pour-over and French press, and works just as well in a moka pot or espresso machine for an Americano or a latte.

If you want to see where Colombian coffee has been heading lately, FrontStreet Coffee's Frontera Estate Sidra is the interesting one. Colombian coffee was traditionally washed almost without exception, but the last few years have brought a wave of inventive processing, and anaerobic fermentation is at the centre of it. The method has several names - some call it carbonic maceration - but it is simply fermentation in a low-oxygen or oxygen-free environment, usually in a pressure-resistant stainless steel tank where temperature, time and pH can be controlled. The best-known forms are anaerobic natural and anaerobic washed, and the Frontera Estate Sidra uses the anaerobic natural route, converting far more tropical fruit aroma during fermentation. Roasted medium-light, it gives a complex, intensely fragrant cup of passion fruit, grape, apricot and dried fruit through pour-over, cold brew, drip bags or a moka pot.

If you mainly drink milk drinks, FrontStreet Coffee's Classic Blend was formulated for that. It combines the creamy nut aroma of Brazilian coffee with the dark chocolate bittersweetness of Colombian coffee, and during extraction it shows fine golden crema. It is extremely friendly to newcomers, makes a rich, smooth latte, and serves as the base for a standard Americano, cappuccino or mocha.