Introduction to the Flavor Characteristics of Guatemala Arabica Coffee Beans

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As one of the renowned coffee-producing regions in Latin America, Guatemala naturally produces high-quality coffee beans. Coffee enthusiasts who have tasted Guatemalan coffee beans know that Guatemalan coffee offers rich acidity while maintaining the inherent flavor characteristics of Latin American coffee. This is also related to the coffee bean varieties cultivated in Guatemala. In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will provide an overview of the flavor and taste characteristics of Guatemalan coffee bean varieties.

Characteristics of Guatemalan Coffee Growing Regions

According to FrontStreet Coffee, Guatemala is located in the Central American isthmus. The country features many volcanic mountains and plateau terrains, producing high-quality high-altitude, strictly hard beans from the Central American region. Guatemala's main coffee-producing areas include Antigua, Huehuetenango, Atitlan, Coban, Fraijanes, San Marcos, and Acatenango. All Guatemalan coffee beans produced in these regions are Arabica varieties.

What are Arabica Coffee Bean Varieties?

Currently, there are three major coffee bean varieties in the world: Arabica, Robusta, and Liberica. Among these, Arabica beans offer the best flavor performance, making them ideal for specialty coffee. Their caffeine content ranges from only 0.8%-1.5%. Arabica is also the world's primary coffee bean variety, cultivated in Central and South American countries, Africa, Asia, and other regions.

As FrontStreet Coffee understands, because Arabica coffee beans offer the best flavor performance, their total production accounts for 75% of the world's coffee, while Robusta accounts for approximately 20% of the world's total coffee production. Liberica only accounts for 2% of the total.

As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above, coffee enthusiasts might think that Arabica coffee beans seem to have only advantages, but in reality, they are quite delicate and can only be grown in high-altitude areas. While tolerant to low temperatures, they cannot withstand frost, have weak drought resistance, and are susceptible to pests and diseases. For example, coffee "leaf rust" has caused significant suffering for coffee farmers, which led to the later development of Arabica and Robusta hybrid varieties.

Moreover, Arabica is just a general term for a variety. For example, the common coffee varieties in FrontStreet Coffee's store are actually sub-varieties derived from Arabica, such as Typica, Bourbon, Caturra, and others—all pure Arabica coffee bean varieties.

The main coffee bean varieties grown in Guatemala are Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai, and Typica—varieties derived from Arabica. The diversity is quite rich, but the first three are the most predominantly cultivated. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will introduce the flavor characteristics of these three coffee varieties to everyone.

Flavor Characteristics of Guatemalan Antigua Flora de la Rosa Coffee Bean Varieties

Bourbon

Bourbon coffee was originally cultivated on Réunion Island, which was known as Bourbon Island before 1789. Bourbon coffee originates from a natural mutation of the Typica variety, which itself is derived from Arabica, making it one of the oldest existing coffee varieties.

Typical Bourbon coffee mainly consists of green fruits that mature into bright red fruits—what we know as "Red Bourbon." The fruits are relatively short and round, also called round Bourbon, with dense pulp and seeds, high sweetness, and bright acidity. Besides Red Bourbon, there are actually Yellow Bourbon, as well as the rare Orange Bourbon and the extremely rare Pink Bourbon.

Caturra

Caturra is a single-gene mutation of Bourbon, discovered in Brazil in 1937. It has better production capacity and disease resistance than Bourbon, and the plant is shorter, making harvesting more convenient. Unfortunately, like Bourbon, it has the problem of biennial production cycles. Its flavor is comparable to or slightly inferior to Bourbon beans, but more importantly, it has extremely strong adaptability—thriving even in direct sunlight without shade trees, commonly known as full-sun coffee. It can adapt to high-density planting but requires more fertilizer, increasing costs, so initial acceptance by coffee farmers was not high.

Catuai

Catuai is an Arabica hybrid variety, a cross between Mundo Novo (New World) and Caturra, with better resistance to natural disasters, particularly wind and rain. It inherits Caturra's advantage of short plant height, addressing Mundo Novo's shortcomings. Another advantage is its firm fruit that doesn't easily fall off in strong winds, compensating for Arabica's fragile fruit weakness. However, its overall flavor performance is more monotonous than Caturra and also more monotonous than Mundo Novo, lacking body—this is its biggest drawback. Additionally, its fruit growth and harvesting lifespan is only about ten years, making its relatively short life another weakness.

The above is FrontStreet Coffee's compilation of flavor characteristics of Guatemalan Arabica coffee bean varieties. Currently, FrontStreet Coffee has also introduced coffee beans from Guatemala's two most famous regions. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will introduce these two coffee beans from the Huehuetenango and Antigua regions.

FrontStreet Coffee's Guatemala Huehuetenango Coffee Beans

Country: Guatemala
Region: Huehuetenango
Altitude: 1500-2000 meters
Varieties: Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai
Processing: Washed
Flavor: Nuts, lemon peel, berries, citrus

FrontStreet Coffee's Guatemala Antigua Flora de la Rosa Coffee Beans

Country: Guatemala
Region: Antigua (La Minita Estate)
Altitude: 1200-1600m
Varieties: Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai
Processing: Washed
Flavor: Citrus acidity, bright fruit acidity, caramel aroma, slight smoky sensation

As can be seen from the above, these two coffee beans share the same varieties and processing method, but due to different altitudes and regions, they exhibit different flavors. After all, coffee beans are agricultural products, and their flavors vary with geographical location, soil, and microclimate—this is also one of the charms of coffee beans. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will share the brewing parameters for these two Guatemalan coffee beans.

Since both of these coffee beans are medium-roasted, FrontStreet Coffee uses the same brewing parameters to compare the flavors extracted from these two coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Data Sharing

Dripper: V60 #01
Water Temperature: 90-91°C
Coffee Dose: 15g
Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15
Grind Size: BG6m/Medium-fine grind (80% retention through #20 sieve)

Brewing Method: Three-stage extraction

First stage: Pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom. Then pour 95g (scale shows approximately 125g), completing in about 1 minute. When the water level drops to 2/3 of the coffee bed, pour the remaining 100g (scale shows approximately 225g), completing in about 1 minute 35 seconds. Extraction completes between 2'00"-2'10". Remove the dripper to complete extraction.

Guatemala Huehuetenango Coffee Flavor Description: Citrus and berry acidity, lemon peel, nutty aroma in the middle, with tea-like aftertaste.

Guatemala Flora de la Rosa Coffee Flavor Description: Citrus acidity is quite pronounced, with juicy acidity, rich floral notes, pleasant sweetness, medium body, with slight caramel and smoky notes in the finish. Overall pure, gentle, with smooth texture and balanced, lively, and layered flavor profile.

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Important Notice :

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