What are the Unique Flavor Characteristics of Colombian Premium Arabica Coffee Beans?

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The Icon of Colombian Coffee

When searching for Colombian coffee, you might have noticed the trademark featuring a mustached gentleman with his little mule. This symbol is actually the official trademark of "Colombian Coffee." It consists of a triangular background, a mule, and a man wearing a straw hat. Because the mountain roads in Colombia's coffee-growing regions are quite rugged, mules are used to transport coffee beans. The image of the mustached gentleman also represents the most common attire of Colombian people.

Why Is Colombian Coffee So Famous?

Colombian coffee is loved by people worldwide primarily because the processed coffee beans from this region have a soft acidity, combined with the rich body of dark chocolate/roasted nuts, and a distinct caramel-like sweetness. It's a coffee bean with unique acidic and rich flavors, where acidity, bitterness, and sweetness are perfectly balanced.

Due to its balanced flavor profile, Colombian coffee beans are widely used in espresso blends. Whether as single-origin beans or in various blends, Colombian coffee beans with different roast levels each exhibit their own characteristics—be it caramel, chocolate, or diverse acidic notes.

Colombian Coffee Growing Environment

Coffee cultivation is mainly concentrated along the western Andes Mountains, where three mountain ranges run from south to north. The country features diverse ecosystems, with different forests, grasslands, rivers, and lakes beneath each mountain forming various climate characteristics. The volcanic ash soil, formed over millions of years, has created ideal conditions for coffee cultivation. Coffee trees are mostly distributed on sloped highlands, where the surrounding clouds and low-temperature environment at high altitudes allow coffee cherries to retain more sugar content, producing coffee with rich flavors and natural sweetness.

Colombian specialty coffee beans mainly come from the southern regions, grown at altitudes above 1500m. These include the Huila region, Cauca region, Narino region, and Tolima region. Through cupping comparisons, FrontStreet Coffee has found that coffee from these regions all features delicate acidity, berry-like sweetness, and caramel aromas with abundant sweetness.

In recent years, when mentioning specialty coffee regions—Huila often brings to mind the Diviso Estate, which has appeared in World Barista Championships. FrontStreet Coffee recommends their Sidra Coffee and Ombligon Coffee, both medium-roasted beans with captivating floral aromas and juicy notes. They're suitable for various brewing methods, including moka pots, coffee machines, cold brew makers, pour-over, and smart drippers, making them the top choice for many coffee enthusiasts. You can purchase them from FrontStreet Coffee's Tmall flagship store.

Colombian Coffee Grading System

Colombian coffee is graded by the size of raw coffee beans using sieve numbers. The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) is quite remarkable—it's an organization that guides and helps coffee farmers sell and promote their coffee. Therefore, we find that all Colombian exported raw beans, whether in jute bags or cardboard boxes, always carry the FNC (Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia) label.

Packaged raw coffee beans are typically sorted using fixed-size screens with different mesh sizes corresponding to different hole diameters. For example, if the screen has 17 mesh holes, beans larger than this size cannot pass through. Therefore, the larger the screen number, the larger the bean particles that remain on the screen.

After sorting by size, coffee beans are screened for defective beans and foreign objects, then graded based on defect rates and cupping tests. When grading by defect rate, Colombia has specific standards, mainly divided into two categories: Category I defects and Category II defects.

Category I defects (defects affecting cupping characteristics): black, moldy, or sour/rotten flavors. Maximum allowable defect value: 12. Category II defects (defects affecting appearance): discolored (old, faded, yellowish, mottled), damaged, broken, cracked, cut, insect-damaged, malformed, immature, grayish or soft, etc. Maximum allowable defect value: 60. Points are deducted based on the number of defects, and the final score determines three grades: AA grade, A grade, and G grade.

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

Colombian Coffee Processing Methods

Most Colombian coffee uses washed processing, and specialty coffee is mainly produced on small to medium-sized self-operated farms. Compared to Brazil's large-scale cultivation, smaller farms typically produce superior quality coffee.

Additionally, the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia,简称FNC) has special initiatives to promote specialty coffee, which must pass strict quality control to be exported! In recent years, many special processing methods have originated from Colombia, including barrel fermentation, anaerobic fermentation, and others. Colombian coffee continues to create innovations and bring progress to the specialty coffee world.

The washed processing method involves pouring harvested coffee cherries into large water tanks, where underdeveloped, inferior beans float to the surface while mature, full fruits sink to the bottom. At this point, the defective cherries floating on the surface are removed. Then, a pulping machine removes the outer skin and pulp of the coffee fruit, leaving a slippery mucilage layer on the beans. The mucilage-covered beans are placed in fermentation tanks for 16-36 hours, during which microorganisms break down the mucilage.

After fermentation is complete, the beans are cleaned with fresh water to remove the decomposed mucilage, then dried with the parchment layer still intact. FrontStreet Coffee believes that the washed processing method best reflects a coffee's quality, directly showcasing the clean taste and pure flavors of coffee. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee has selected a Caturra coffee from the Huila region as an introductory selection/daily coffee, allowing everyone to experience Colombian regional flavors at a high cost-performance ratio.

Colombian Coffee Bean Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee currently sells 4 specialty Colombian coffee beans: 3 from the Huila region and 1 from the Cauca region. To preserve the soft acidity of Colombian regional coffee beans and the sweetness after caramelization, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium roasting for all, while extending the time from the yellowing stage to before first crack, allowing the coffee beans to develop better sweetness.

To ensure everyone experiences the most complete coffee flavors and aromas, all coffee beans sold by FrontStreet Coffee are shipped within 5 days of roasting—100% fresh roasted.

FrontStreet Coffee - Colombian Huila Coffee Beans

Region: Huila
Altitude: 1500-1800 meters
Processing: Washed processing
Variety: Caturra
Flavor Profile: Soft fruit acidity, nuts, chocolate, caramel

FrontStreet Coffee - Colombian Flower-Viewing Coffee Beans

Region: Huila, Monteblanco Estate
Altitude: 1900 meters
Processing: Washed processing
Variety: Caturra, Catuai, Geisha
Flavor Profile: Pink pepper, chamomile, wo citrus, honey, almond

FrontStreet Coffee - Colombian Flower Moon Night Coffee Beans

Region: Huila
Altitude: 1800 meters
Processing: Anaerobic natural processing
Variety: Caturra
Flavor Profile: Strawberry jam, fermented wine aroma, chocolate

FrontStreet Coffee - Colombian Sakura Coffee Beans

Region: Cauca, Paraiso Estate
Altitude: 2050 meters
Processing: Double anaerobic washed processing
Variety: Castillo
Flavor Profile: Artemisia, berries, fermented aroma, spices, strawberry jam

Rose Valley and Flower Moon Night both belong to the floral-fruity sweetness category while carrying rich fermented aromas, so FrontStreet Coffee's roasters use medium roasting. The Huila daily coffee focuses more on highlighting the nutty sweetness, so FrontStreet Coffee chooses medium roasting for it as well.

For how to brew a good cup of coffee, FrontStreet Coffee believes that freshly roasted coffee beans are the primary requirement. The aroma of coffee beans changes based on storage environment and time. Once past the optimal tasting period, the coffee's aroma will deteriorate rapidly. FrontStreet Coffee understands how important coffee freshness is, so all shipped coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days, so they can be opened for brewing when we receive them.

Dripper: V60
Water Temperature: 90-91°C
Grind Size: 80% passing through a #20 standard sieve
Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15
Coffee Amount: 15 grams

Pour the coffee grounds into the V60 dripper, use twice the weight of the coffee grounds in water to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome and let it bloom for 30 seconds. Then, use a small water stream to pour in circles from inside to out to 125g, then pause. Wait until the coffee bed drops to half the height of the dripper, continue with the same fine stream to pour a third section to 225g. Remove the dripper once all coffee liquid has filtered through, taking approximately 2 minutes.

When tasting these coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee found that different regions and processing methods affect the flavor of the coffee beans. The washed Colombian Huila daily coffee has distinct chocolate and nut aromas, caramel wet aroma, and appropriately balanced soft fruit acidity—overall very harmonious. The anaerobic enzyme washed Rose Valley presents sweet rose aromas, with liquid-centered chocolate flavor when tasted, and as the temperature cools, you can experience the sweet and sour taste of dried cranberries. The anaerobic natural Flower Moon Night showcases more of the refreshing sweetness of cantaloupe, rich strawberry jam and fermented fruit aromas, finishing with chocolate aftertaste and rich mouthfeel.

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