Introduction to Colombian Coffee: Regions and Grading System

Colombian coffee is renowned in the coffee world for its mild yet rich aroma, consistently ranking among the world's top coffee exporters. When it comes to high-quality coffee, Colombia is always prominent. FrontStreet Coffee features Colombian coffee beans in both its pour-over single origins and espresso blends, demonstrating just how popular it is.

Why is Colombian Coffee So Popular?

Like many agricultural products, coffee bean quality is influenced by factors such as variety, climate conditions, altitude, management and harvesting methods, and post-processing. Coffee is a tropical economic crop suitable for growing in high-altitude, frost-free areas. For every 100 meters of elevation gain, the temperature drops by 0.6°C. Lower temperatures and oxygen levels cause coffee beans to mature more slowly. In this state, coffee trees direct most of their nutrients to the fruit, resulting in denser beans with harder textures, while also having more time to absorb and store nutrients in the form of sugars. The Andes Mountains in Colombia perfectly meet these "demanding" conditions.

The Andes Mountains, located in western Colombia, are divided into three continuous high ranges. Each range has fertile soil rich in organic matter, with coffee trees planted on land between 800-2,300 meters, enjoying nourishing sunlight and appropriate shade from clouds. The diverse climate between the mountains creates year-round harvest seasons, with different varieties of coffee maturing at different times, allowing us to see busy figures picking coffee in the forests throughout various seasons. Local growers typically plant coffee trees under shade trees, mostly tall trees or banana trees. Shade structures are built for coffee seedlings to ensure the cool, humid environment needed for coffee growth. Due to the high humidity and small temperature differences in coffee forests, beans mature slowly, which facilitates the accumulation of caffeine and aromatic compounds, resulting in the best coffee quality.

The success secret of Colombian coffee goes beyond its unique geographical environment. As coffee is the national beverage locally, the growers' passion, research, and dedication to coffee are unmatched by other coffee-producing regions. In recent years, with industry development, Colombian coffee has demonstrated exceptionally rich flavors through manual cherry selection, precise fermentation, and professional cupping knowledge, naturally becoming the preferred choice for coffee enthusiasts.

Where Does Colombia's Specialty Coffee Come From?

Early Colombian coffee was named after local production areas and exported. Even when there were specialty-grade beans, they appeared as local micro-batches. The planting scale of Colombian small farmers is not large, and few have their own processing equipment. Starting in the twentieth century, the local coffee industry flourished, thanks to the establishment of the Federación Nacional de Colombia (FNC, Colombian National Coffee Federation).

FNC is Colombia's only official professional coffee association, representing over 560,000 coffee farmer families and has become one of the world's largest agricultural non-governmental organizations. FNC promotes the brand image of Colombian coffee globally and monitors the quality of every coffee bean exported from Colombia. Not only does it promote in international markets, but it also invests significant human and material resources in Colombia to support farmers' cultivation, production, management, and sustainable operations.

Thanks to FNC's management and guarantees, 590 cities and 14 coffee-growing regions in Colombia now cultivate approximately 875,000 hectares of coffee, mostly from small coffee farms. The planting area of Colombian small farmers is typically around 2-3 mu (approximately 0.13-0.2 hectares). Small farmers take coffee to community coffee processing stations for washing or establish their own green bean processing equipment, before finally sending it for quality grading.

From the map, we can observe that Colombia's coffee production regions have quite distinct boundaries, divided into three major areas from south to north: northern, central, and southern. The specialty bean production areas are mainly in the south, with altitudes above 1,500 meters, including San Augustin in Huila, Popayan in Cauca, Nariño, and Tolima. Products from these regions have delicate acidity and berry aromas, with caramel notes and full sweetness.

Colombia cultivates numerous coffee varieties, predominantly traditional Arabica species like Caturra, Bourbon, Typica, and Pacamara. Of course, there are also some popular rare varieties, such as Gesha, which have appeared in small batches on the market in recent years. FrontStreet Coffee's selected Colombian daily bean comes from Huila, with the coffee variety being Caturra, widely planted locally. It uses natural washed processing and has a balanced sweet, sour, and bitter taste after roasting.

In Colombia, Are Bigger Coffee Beans Better?

Colombian green coffee beans are graded by size before export, typically using screens of fixed sizes, with different specifications corresponding to different hole sizes. For example, if the screen holes are 17 mesh size, beans larger than this size cannot pass through the screen. Therefore, the larger the screen number, the larger the bean particles remaining on the screen. The most common export grades are UGQ, EP, and Supremo.

Regardless of green bean size grade, as long as green beans are exported, they belong to the Excelso grade. In other words, most Colombian green coffee bean bags exported worldwide today must be marked with the Excelso grade. The Excelso export grade is currently the most widely used export standard adopted by FNC and is also the optimal grade for Colombian green bean exports. Excelso grade coffee must meet these requirements: for 500 grams of green beans, the size must be above 14 mesh, with no more than 5% of green beans between 12 and 14 mesh, and overall at least 50% of green beans must be larger than 15 mesh. Free from pests, uniform color, no off-flavors, and clean flavor. Moisture content cannot exceed 12.5%, and cumulative defects cannot exceed 24 points.

Each farmer reports a number and records green bean information, facilitating future green bean traceability. Colombian exported green coffee beans are typically named as country+region+grade+other information. For example, FrontStreet Coffee's Huila daily bean green beans are labeled as Colombia Huila Supremo SC17/18 FNC.

How to Brew Colombian Coffee for the Best Taste?

FrontStreet Coffee's flavor descriptions for each coffee are based on freshly roasted beans. If coffee beans have been stored for more than a month, some aroma may have been lost, making it difficult to restore the original flavor through brewing. FrontStreet Coffee also understands the importance of freshness, so it ensures only coffee beans roasted within 5 days are shipped, allowing everyone to enjoy the complete optimal tasting period upon receipt.

Considering that the Huila daily bean uses medium-dark roasting with flavors leaning toward nutty, chocolate-rich, and mellow notes, the deeper roasting makes the coffee beans more porous, and the coffee powder more absorbent. Therefore, a medium grind is selected. To avoid extracting excessive off-flavors, FrontStreet Coffee lowers the water temperature slightly, using medium 90°C water temperature paired with a KONO dripper for extraction. Unlike the V60 dripper, the KONO dripper's only exhaust area is the one-quarter ribbing. When the water level passes the ribbing area, the water in the dripper continuously increases, increasing pressure through the water's weight. Due to the relatively smaller outlet, it can prolong the contact time between coffee particles and water, as water flow more effectively brings out soluble substances, thereby enhancing the coffee's rich, mellow taste.

Brewing parameters: KONO dripper, 90°C water temperature, #20 standard sieve with 75% pass rate grind, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, coffee amount: 15 grams, three-stage extraction

Pour the coffee powder into a V60 dripper, wet the coffee bed with twice the amount of water to form a dome and bloom for 30s. Then use a small water stream to pour in circles from inside to out to 125g for the first stage. Wait for the coffee bed to drop to half the dripper's height, then continue with the same fine stream for the third stage to 225g. Remove the dripper once all coffee liquid has filtered through, with a total time of about 2 minutes.

This Colombian Huila daily bean presents distinct roasted aromas of chocolate, nuts, and caramel. It's smooth and sweet, with moderate body and clean taste. As the temperature decreases, you can experience pleasant, gentle acidity.

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