What Kind of Coffee Do Coffee Experts Drink? Is Brazilian Arabica Coffee Delicious?

The Art of Coffee: Understanding Different Varieties and Origins

Many people drink coffee as a daily habit, whether it's espresso, a concentrated coffee drink, or the specialty coffee best suited to pour-over brewing. How coffee is presented varies, and that produces different flavors, while everyone's preference for coffee is subjective. With the rise of the third wave, specialty coffee has become increasingly beloved by enthusiasts, and anyone who knows a little about coffee will be familiar with specialty pour-over.

Those who understand coffee typically choose among the following origins based on the flavor profile they want:

Sumatra

Sumatra coffee is renowned for its rich chocolate flavor and full body, with some of the finest coming from the northern Aceh region. The average farm size in Sumatra is very small, typically only one to five hectares nationwide, and different varieties are often found growing together. FrontStreet Coffee's everyday supply beans, Mandheling and Golden Mandheling, are especially popular.

Colombia

As a large country, Colombia has a mature coffee industry spread across 17 regions, with quality ranging from exceptional to ordinary. Thanks to its many microclimates and growing regions, there is enormous potential for variation in flavor. Some Colombian coffees have heavy bodies with chocolate and nut flavors, while others are very clean and complex, with jam-like sweetness and citrus notes.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia is another well-known coffee origin, using both natural and washed processes to create outstanding flavor profiles that truly must be tasted to be believed. Ethiopian natural coffee is almost "geisha-like" in character, with intense floral aromas and notes of ripe strawberry and blueberry.

Brazil - The World's Most Powerful Coffee Origin

Brazil is the most influential and economically powerful country in South America, and one of the world's largest economies. Coffee plantations cover approximately 27,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles) with about 6 billion trees, 74% of which are Arabica and 26% Robusta. The states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo, and Paraná are the largest producers, thanks to their suitable landscapes, climate, and fertile soil. However, since Paraná suffered severe frost damage in the mid-1970s that destroyed most of its coffee, production has largely moved northward. Most plantations are harvested during the dry months from May to July, with new crops typically arriving in the UK between October and January.

Because of its excellent body and balance, coffee from Brazil tends to be better suited to espresso-based drinks, and it also pairs perfectly with milk.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the expert picks above have you curious about the opulent end of coffee, Sumatra is where to begin, and FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling is the reference bean for the region. It is a wet-hulled Indonesian coffee from the Gayo highlands near Lake Tawar in Aceh, and it meets the top G1 standard: beans screened at 18 mesh and above, with fewer than three defective beans per 300 g green sample, then hand-sorted three times for a remarkably clean, sweet cup. Roasted medium-dark, it delivers the herbaceous, dark-chocolate, and earthy notes that make Mandheling so distinctive, with low acidity and a full, syrupy body that lingers. For a more wallet-friendly daily Mandheling, FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling comes from the traditional Lake Toba region in North Sumatra and shows the same wild herbal fragrance with a pronounced caramel sweetness. FrontStreet Coffee suggests brewing either one with 15 g of coffee at a 1:15 ratio and 87-88°C water, ground to coarse-sugar size and poured in three stages to draw out the body and caramel sweetness.