What Brazilian Coffee Notes Come Through in Yellow Bourbon?
Most Brazilian coffee grows on low-altitude flatland, is dried in the open air and is harvested on a large scale, giving the cup low acidity, full body and nutty, chocolatey brazilian coffee notes. That profile is why so much of it lands in espresso blends rather than on its own.
Brazil also produces specialty coffee. Queen Estate in the Mogiana region sits at 1,400 to 1,950 meters, grows the Yellow Bourbon variety and is sun-dried, showing dark chocolate, cream, peanut, sugarcane and nut flavors. A medium-dark roast and a three-pour method with 15 grams at a 1:15 ratio suit it.
Brazilian coffee is often known for its low acidity, full body, and nutty and chocolatey notes, and is mostly used in espresso blends. But Brazil also produces specialty-grade single origins, such as Front Street Coffee's own roasted Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon. This bean comes from the Mogiana region, at an altitude of 1,400 to 1,950 meters, is sun-dried, and presents flavors of dark chocolate, cream, peanut, sugarcane, and nuts. This article will outline the overall characteristics of Brazilian coffee, focus on the origins of Queen Estate and the Yellow Bourbon variety, and share Front Street Coffee's medium-dark roasting approach and three-pour hand-brewing method for this bean, including specific parameters such as the KONO dripper, 87 to 88°C water temperature, 15 grams of coffee, and a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, to help enthusiasts recreate a round and smooth Brazilian single origin at home.
Most Brazilian coffee is grown on low-altitude flatlands, processed by open-air drying, lacks sufficient microclimate conditions, and is harvested on a large scale, giving the coffee an overall profile of low acidity, full body, and nutty and chocolatey flavors, and it is often used as the base of espresso recipes. Some may think Brazilian coffee is one-dimensional in flavor and mostly commercial grade, but in fact Brazil also produces specialty-grade good beans. For example, Front Street Coffee's own roasted "Brazil Queen Estate Coffee Beans" uses the excellent-quality Yellow Bourbon variety and is a highly cost-effective Brazilian single origin.
FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Queen Estate Coffee Beans Region: Brazil, Mogiana region Estate: Queen Estate Altitude: 1,400–1,950 m Variety: Yellow Bourbon Processing method: Sun-dried Flavor: Dark chocolate, cream, peanut, sugarcane, nuts Queen Estate is located in the Mogiana region of São Paulo state, near southern Minas, and together with the Cerrado region and South Minas is known as one of Brazil's three major specialty regions. Unlike ordinary Brazilian beans, Mogiana's growing altitude is between 1,100 and 1,250 meters, noticeably higher than other areas of São Paulo. The higher altitude increases the temperature difference between day and night and also improves coffee quality. In addition, because the terrain is rolling and continuous, Queen Estate mostly picks ripe cherries by hand and mainly exports specialty coffee of the Bourbon variety. Among these, the delicately flavored Yellow Bourbon has won the estate many top rankings in numerous coffee competitions.
Yellow Bourbon is a Bourbon variety grown in Brazil. Common Bourbon cherries change color from green to slightly yellow, then red, and finally dark red from flowering to fruit maturity, so it is called Red Bourbon. Front Street Coffee's everyday Brazilian staple bean uses the traditional Red Bourbon variety, which after roasting has chocolate and peanut flavors. Yellow Bourbon does not turn cherry red at maturity, but orange-yellow, and was discovered in 1930. Later, research by the Campinas Agronomic Institute (IAC) found that plants with a dominant XcXc gene pair bear red berries; plants with a recessive xcxc gene pair bear yellow berries; and in very rare cases, plants with one dominant and one recessive Xcxc combination bear orange berries. So the yellow color of Yellow Bourbon comes from selective color inheritance. Yellow Bourbon grown at high altitudes accumulates a large amount of fructose and can display a sweet and juicy flavor. It once swept Brazil's "Cup of Excellence" competition for two consecutive years, almost taking all top three places, and became highly popular in the specialty coffee world.
After Queen Estate picks ripe Yellow Bourbon cherries, it uses sun-drying to let the coffee fruit absorb more sweetness from the pulp during drying. Brazil is close to the equator, and the harvest season happens to be the dry season, so coffee cherries are very suitable for direct dehydration by sun-drying. However, the traditional open-air drying method is crude: after picking, the cherries are spread directly on mud ground to dry, and the resulting coffee easily carries an earthy taste, while uneven heating can also produce negative notes of over-fermentation. Queen Estate first pours the coffee cherries into a water tank, removes underripe fruits by flotation, then places them in small batches on African raised beds with better airflow and turns them irregularly, thereby avoiding earthy and over-fermented flavors, and the sweetness is even better than that of the traditional sun-dried method.
In roasting, Front Street Coffee wants to highlight Queen Estate's classic Brazilian flavor, that is, a low-acid, full-bodied profile, so it uses a medium-dark roast. Through cupping, Front Street Coffee found that this Queen Estate has a very obvious sweetness, so it uses a three-pour method during brewing to present a richer layering.
Coffee beans enter their best tasting period 4–7 days after roasting. Beyond this time (about a month and a half after roasting), the aroma may already have faded and some woody notes may develop. To avoid this, Front Street Coffee has mentioned in many articles that the most important thing is that Front Street Coffee only ships coffee beans freshly roasted within 5 days, so everyone can taste coffee with excellent flavor. Dripper: Medium-dark roasted coffee beans mainly present a full and round mouthfeel. For this characteristic, Front Street Coffee uses the slower-flow KONO dripper for extraction. The upper part of the KONO is a smooth curved surface, and below it there are guiding ribs one-third of its length, which allow the filter paper to fit the dripper more closely, restrict airflow upward, and let hot water only flow downward, forming a siphon-style extraction effect and allowing the aromatic substances in the coffee grounds to be released more fully.
After medium roasting, the internal structure of coffee beans changes greatly and becomes porous, and after grinding into powder it absorbs water more strongly. If the brewing parameters are not adjusted well, the coffee easily becomes over-extracted and bitter. To give the coffee enough aroma without over-extraction, the extraction rate needs to be lowered. Front Street Coffee uses a lower water temperature and a coarser grind to reduce the release of bitter large molecules in the coffee. Coffee grounds absorb about twice their own weight in water. Front Street Coffee generally uses 15 grams of coffee grounds and extracts at a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, finally obtaining close to 200 ml of coffee liquid, that is, 1–2 servings. Dripper: KONO dripper Water temperature: 87–88°C Coffee dose: 15 grams Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15 Grind size: Medium grind (70% passing a Chinese standard No. 20 sieve) Use twice the coffee grounds' weight in water to wet the coffee bed, form a dome and bloom for 30s, then pour in a thin stream in circles from the inside out to 125g and pause. When the coffee bed drops to half the height of the dripper, continue pouring the third pour with the same thin stream to 225g, and after all the coffee liquid has filtered through, remove the dripper. The time is about 2 minutes.
Hand-brewed Brazil Queen Estate coffee smells of lemon, nuts, and peanut. On the palate it is very mellow with nut, dark chocolate, and caramel flavors, with obvious sweetness, a mouthfeel as smooth as cream, and an overall round profile. For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style) For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of FrontStreet Coffee: qjcoffeex
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
