How to Brew Colombian Huila Perfectly: V60 Pour-Over Coffee Techniques

FrontStreet Coffee - Colombian Huila Pour Over Introduction

Colombia Cup of Excellence champion lot, double anaerobic fermentation and washed — built around a strawberry-yogurt sweetness.

Coffee Details

Region: Huila

Variety: Bourbon

Altitude: 2050m

Processing: Anaerobic Washed

Flavor Notes: Pineapple, Strawberry, Fermented Wine Aroma

Brewing Instructions

V60 dripper | Grind size: BG-6S | Recommended ratio: 1:15–1:18 (adjust the strength to suit your own taste)

Begin with a 30 g bloom and wait 30 seconds, starting the clock the moment you pour. For the second pour, add water until the scale reads 125 g. Wait until the water level drops and is just about to expose the coffee bed, then make the third pour up to 225 g. Let the bed drain until it is about to expose again, then lift the dripper off. Total extraction time: 2:00.

About FrontStreet Coffee

To put it briefly, FrontStreet Coffee is a specialty coffee research house devoted to sharing coffee knowledge with enthusiasts. We hold nothing back, simply because we want more people to fall in love with coffee. Every month we run three low-priced coffee events, because FrontStreet Coffee wants to put the best coffee in front of more friends at the lowest possible price. That has been our mission for the past six years.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Colombian coffee is unusually versatile: it works equally well in an espresso blend and as a pour-over single origin, and it covers a wide range of styles — fruit-acid profiles, full-bodied cups and aroma-driven lots alike — so there is something in it for almost every drinker. To understand the country's most famous specialty region, start with FrontStreet Coffee's washed Huila. The province of Huila sits in the southern stretch of Colombia's central cordillera, a mountain-ringed landscape of rolling hills where the country's most important rivers meet, bringing abundant water and humidity to plantations that sit above 1,500 metres. FrontStreet's washed Huila is roasted medium-dark, which plays up dark chocolate and the sweet savour of nuts, a moderate oil content and a full, rounded body. It is at home in a pour-over or a French press, and it also extracts beautifully in a moka pot or on an espresso machine — an Americano or a latte are both easy.

Colombia was long a country of washed coffee, but in recent years experimental processing has taken hold, and anaerobic fermentation is the most exciting of those techniques. It is sometimes called carbonic maceration; in short, it ferments the coffee in a low-oxygen or oxygen-free environment, usually inside a pressure-resistant stainless-steel tank where temperature, time and pH can all be controlled. Anaerobic natural and anaerobic washed are the best-known versions, and FrontStreet Coffee's Sidra — the "Frontera" estate lot — goes through the anaerobic natural route. The oxygen-free fermentation converts the coffee into far more tropical fruit aromatics, and a medium-light roast keeps that intact across pour-over, cold brew, drip bags and moka pot, where you will find passion fruit, grape, apricot and candied-fruit complexity.

For anyone with a home espresso machine or a moka pot, FrontStreet Coffee's Specialty Blend is the barista's strongest recommendation. It is an espresso blend built for café use, combining the creamy, nutty aroma of Brazilian coffee with the bittersweet dark chocolate of Colombian coffee. Pulling a shot reveals a fine golden crema, and it takes to milk superbly, making a latte that is rich and silky and very forgiving for beginners. It also works as the base for an Americano, cappuccino or mocha.