Characteristics and Taste Differences Between Red Bourbon and Yellow Bourbon Coffee Beans - Brief Introduction to the Origin Story of Bourbon Coffee

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With the development of the specialty coffee market, more and more coffee varieties are appearing before coffee enthusiasts. Coffee enthusiasts all know that currently, almost all single-origin coffees from production areas are 100% pure Arabica varieties. Arabica has derived subspecies such as Typica, Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai, and so on. Among them, the Bourbon variety is further divided into Yellow Bourbon, Red Bourbon, and Pink Bourbon. In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will explain the characteristics of Bourbon variety coffee beans.

Origin of Bourbon Variety Coffee Beans

Bourbon variety coffee beans are an old variety, just like Typica variety coffee beans, both belonging to the Arabica coffee species. Bourbon coffee was initially cultivated on Réunion Island in Brazil. The island was known as Bourbon Island (le Bourbon) before 1789, hence the coffee variety was named "Bourbon."

Although both are old coffee bean varieties, FrontStreet Coffee observes that the difference between Bourbon and Typica varieties is that Bourbon leaves are wider and denser than Typica, and its yield is 30% higher than Typica coffee. The beans are relatively round and short, with rich berry acidity, distinct cream and fragrance, strong fruity aroma, but share the same problem of poor disease resistance. Simply put, Bourbon is a coffee tree variety belonging to a branch of the Arabica species, generally bearing red fruits, called Red Bourbon, in addition to Yellow Bourbon and Pink Bourbon.

What is Red Bourbon?

Red Bourbon refers to the color change of coffee fruits after flowering and fruiting on Bourbon coffee trees: from green → slight yellow → slight orange → mature red → darker red when overripe, hence it's called Red Bourbon. It has excellent aroma, bright acidity, and even has wine-like flavors when consumed. According to FrontStreet Coffee, Red Bourbon is also the most widely planted variety in Brazil's coffee-producing regions.

Currently, the Brazilian staple coffee beans used in FrontStreet Coffee stores are Red Bourbon variety, representing the flavor characteristics of Brazil's coffee-producing regions. Because Red Bourbon is not only the most productive variety of Brazilian coffee beans but also the most primitive variety.

FrontStreet Coffee: Brazilian Red Bourbon Coffee Beans

Country: Brazil
Region: South Minas
Altitude: 1000m
Variety: Red Bourbon
Processing: Semi-washed
Flavor: Nuts, Chocolate, Cream, Peanuts, Caramel

What is Yellow Bourbon?

Yellow Bourbon is a mutant variety of Bourbon. Bourbon has always been considered a leader in coffee due to its high yield and quality. Yellow Bourbon is a unique Bourbon variant in São Paulo state, Brazil. Unlike Red Bourbon, the coffee fruits turn orange-yellow when mature, hence its name. Due to Yellow Bourbon being planted at very high altitudes, its flavor is excellent.

According to FrontStreet Coffee's cupping results, Yellow Bourbon coffee beans planted in high-altitude regions show excellent flavor performance. Yellow Bourbon coffee beans have swept the top three awards in Brazil's Cup of Excellence competition for two consecutive years, making it popular in the specialty coffee industry. Yellow Bourbon typically has nutty and chocolate flavors, balanced and smooth acidity, weak and clean bitterness, with an overall bright and refreshing taste.

Among them, the Brazilian Queen's Estate coffee beans introduced in FrontStreet Coffee stores are precisely Yellow Bourbon variety, which explains its excellent sweet flavor, overall balance and richness, with a smooth taste.

FrontStreet Coffee: Brazilian Queen's Coffee Beans

Country: Brazil
Region: São Paulo State (Queen's Estate)
Altitude: 1400-1950m
Variety: Yellow Bourbon
Processing Method: Semi-washed/Natural
Flavor: Nuts, Cream, Peanuts, Fermented Fruits, Sugarcane

What is Pink Bourbon?

As the name suggests, Pink Bourbon is when the coffee fruits of Bourbon trees mature into a romantic pink color, belonging to a rare coffee variety. However, according to FrontStreet Coffee, Pink Bourbon did not first appear in its place of origin, Brazil, but was first discovered in the town of Palestine in Huila Province, Colombia, so it is currently mainly planted in the Huila region of Colombia.

According to FrontStreet Coffee, Pink Bourbon is a natural hybrid of Yellow Bourbon and Red Bourbon. Yellow Bourbon and Red Bourbon belong to dominant traits expressed by dominant genes, with relatively strong reproductive stability, while the new variety Pink Bourbon hybridized from them belongs to recessive traits expressed by recessive genes, and the offspring produced by hybrid reproduction are prone to trait segregation.

However, there is another theory about the genes of Pink Bourbon. Some studies have found that Pink Bourbon is a natural hybrid of Bourbon and Caturra. Caturra is a variant of Bourbon, and the Colombia variety, as a coffee tree species heavily promoted for cultivation in Colombia, has obvious advantages due to carrying some Robusta genes: high yield and resistance to leaf rust disease. Its drawback is mediocre flavor performance and lack of delicate acidity and sweetness.

The reason FrontStreet Coffee says Pink Bourbon is a rare variety is mainly because maintaining this beautiful pink color is very difficult. Because through artificial hybridization, sometimes orange Bourbon fruits may be harvested. This is because the color of coffee fruits is ultimately determined by the recessive genes in pollen grains. These pollen grains contain both yellow genes leaning toward Yellow Bourbon and red genes leaning toward Red Bourbon, but all these belong to recessive genes that easily interfere with each other, so Pink Bourbon's yield is very scarce, and the price is relatively expensive.

FrontStreet Coffee stores currently also have Pink Bourbon variety coffee beans from Huila, Colombia, which FrontStreet Coffee will share with coffee enthusiast friends. This coffee bean has a unique cherry tomato flavor, easily reminiscent of berry acidity, with vanilla, dark chocolate flavors, and overall sugarcane sweetness, with distinct flavor layers.

FrontStreet Coffee: Colombian Isabella Coffee Beans

Country: Colombia
Region: Huila
Altitude: 1760m
Variety: Pink Bourbon
Processing: Semi-washed
Flavor: Cherry Tomato, Citrus, Floral, Honey, Fruits

The above is the related content and knowledge about Bourbon variety coffee beans compiled by FrontStreet Coffee, hoping to help coffee enthusiast friends who want to understand Bourbon variety coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee conducts extensive brewing and testing for each coffee bean before listing it to determine the best hand-brew parameters, ensuring stable coffee bean quality. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will share the brewing data for these three coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Parameters Sharing

The characteristics of Brazilian coffee beans mainly focus on richness. To highlight this flavor, it's recommended to control the roasting degree to medium or above, so FrontStreet Coffee's roaster uses medium roasting for both Brazilian Bourbon beans.

Red Bourbon and Yellow Bourbon Coffee Bean Roasting Data:

Yangjia 800N, bean input 550g: Preheat to 200°C, adjust heat to 150, damper open to 3, return temperature at 1'30", maintain heat, turn yellow at 5'10", grass smell disappears, enter dehydration stage, reduce heat to 125, damper open to 3.5. Dehydration completed at 8'20", wrinkles and black spots appear on bean surface, toast smell turns to coffee aroma, as prelude to first crack. When reaching 178°C, reduce heat to 80, listen carefully for first crack sound. First crack starts at 9'14", damper fully open to 5. Development time after first crack is 3'00", discharge at 201°C.

Pink Bourbon Coffee Bean Roasting Data:

Because Pink Bourbon has such a unique flavor display, to better tap this bean's flavor potential, FrontStreet Coffee's roaster uses medium-light roasting for this coffee bean. Heat to 180°C, damper open to 3, heat at 120; return temperature at 1'42", when furnace temperature reaches 140°C, heat unchanged, damper open to 4; at this time, bean surface turns yellow, grass smell completely disappears, enter dehydration stage. At 176°C, heat reduced to 100, at 180°C heat reduced to 70, damper unchanged. At 8'17", ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on bean surface, toast smell obviously turns to coffee aroma, can be defined as prelude to first crack. At this time, listen carefully for first crack sound. First crack starts at 9'30", damper adjusted to 5 (adjust heat very carefully, not too small to avoid no crack sound). After first crack development for 1'30'', discharge at 191.5°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Recommendations

Brazilian Red Bourbon & Yellow Bourbon Brewing Recommendations

Filter: KONO
Coffee Dose: 15g
Water Temperature: 90°C
Grind Size: Medium grind, 70% pass-through rate on #20 standard sieve
Water-to-Coffee Ratio: 1:15

For coffee beans like Brazilian coffee beans with a darker roast degree, to highlight the richness of coffee, FrontStreet Coffee chooses KONO filter to brew. The characteristic of KONO filter is its immersion function, which can extract more coffee substances through immersion, enhancing rich taste. Because its ribs are few and located at the bottom, it can make the filter paper stick closely to the filter to achieve the effect of limiting airflow, thus slowing water flow and increasing water-coffee contact time.

Water temperature selection of 88°C is a relatively low brewing temperature, which can avoid extracting too much undesirable taste from coffee beans during brewing, because the deeper the roast degree of coffee beans, the more undesirable taste will increase.

Colombian Pink Bourbon Brewing Recommendations

Filter: Hario V60
Water Temperature: 90°C
Coffee Dose: 15g
Water-to-Coffee Ratio: 1:16
Grind Size: Medium-fine grind (BG 6k: 82% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)

Pink Bourbon belongs to medium-light roast, so FrontStreet Coffee chooses to use V60 filter for brewing, because V60 filter's long ribs help to quickly extract flavor substances, and the large hole has no risk of obstruction, resulting in layered extracted coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Techniques

All three coffee beans use segmented extraction, with 30g of water for bloom for 30 seconds, small water flow circle pour to 125g when segmented, continue pouring to 225g when water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, stop (timing from bloom start), extraction time is 2 minutes. The brewing techniques for the two beans try to maintain consistency.

(Red Bourbon) Brazilian Red Bourbon Coffee Bean Brewing Flavor: High sweetness, clean, smooth, low acidity, with flavors of peanuts, almonds, nuts, and chocolate.

(Yellow Bourbon) Brazilian Queen's Estate Coffee Bean Flavor: Balanced taste, highlighting sugarcane sweetness in the main tone of almond cocoa, a coffee with good fullness and rich sweetness.

(Pink Bourbon) Colombian Isabella Coffee Bean Brewing Flavor: Entry with citrus, berries, cherry tomatoes, with caramel sweetness and light fermentation fragrance as temperature changes, aftertaste has floral and nut cream aroma, smooth and clean taste.

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473