“Why is this coffee called Big Navel?”This is a question N friends will ask when looking at the Front Street Coffee bean list blackboard! But indeed, it’s not just on the Front Street Coffee bean list—the name Big Navel stands out no matter where it’s placed, so it draws more attention than other coffees!
The reason it’s called Big Navel may already have been guessed by some friends: it’s because of its appearance. More precisely, the appearance of its fruit has some resemblance to a navel.
The fruit of the Big Navel variety has a very notable characteristic—not that it looks like a navel, but that it’s big! Compared with conventional Arabica varieties, its fruit and beans are both larger in size, similar in size to Maragogype（Maragogype）and Pacamara（Pacamara）. Since the beans are the same, this means coffee farmers need to specially adjust the machine when processing it; otherwise, because the spacing is too small and the beans are too large, the machine can easily damage the coffee beans when removing the skin and pulp.The reason it was named Navel is somewhat similar to the navel orange variety: because there is a naturally formed navel-like structure at the bottom of the fruit! This morphological feature is very similar to the human navel, so coffee farmers named it “Ombligon.”（Ombligon is Spanish, and translated it means “navel” or “belly button.”）At present, the Big Navel variety is mainly grown in Colombia’s Huila region. Like most rare varieties found in Colombia, the local coffee farmers growing it earlier did not know much about its identity information, only that it might be a natural mutated variety from Ethiopia. Later, genetic testing by the World Coffee Research institute confirmed this, becausethis variety carries 60% Ethiopian landrace genes and 40% Colombian coffee genes.Local Colombian coffee farmers found that, possibly because this variety is a natural mutation, it has some appearance characteristics in common with the native Colombian variety Caturra（Caturra）. For example, the plant leaves are equally broad, the coffee fruits are very densely distributed, the branches grow vertically, and the yield is extremely outstanding.But some Colombian coffee professionals believe that Big Navel may have mutated from Pacamara, Bourbon, or even other varieties such as Castillo. Because this variety has strong resistance to coffee leaf rust, coffee farmers do not need to worry too much about its health, and it is very easy to grow.Due to its characteristics of high yield and high disease resistance, coffee farmers in the Huila region all began to grow the Big Navel variety. In the end, testing found that Big Navel grown at 1600m–1800m has the best flavor. Speaking of this, Front Street Coffee must talk properly about its flavor, because Big Navel’s flavor is indeed very unique, so much so that in various world-class coffee competitions, we can often see Big Navel appear.The stage where Big Navel first showed its brilliance was in 2023 at theWBC（World Barista Championship）finals, where an Australian competitor, Jack Simpson, used Big Navel from Finca El Diviso as his competition bean and won third place in one go.
According to a post-competition interview, Jack said he chose Big Navel because this bean has a very complex and unique flavor, which fit very well with the competition bean he had in mind.And in other competitions around the time of WBC, many other competitors also used Big Navel. As a result, the Big Navel variety gradually became well known to everyone.Front Street Coffee naturally would not let this unique deliciousness slip by, so in early last year it added Front Street Coffee Finca El Diviso · Big Navel to the menu, and this also became the trigger for the question Front Street Coffee mentioned at the beginning of the article.
Front Street Coffee: Colombia · Finca El Diviso Big Navel
Region: Huila Region
Farm: Finca El Diviso
Altitude: 1700 meters
Processing Method: Double Anaerobic Natural
Variety: Big Navel
Flavor: Grape, Orange, Blueberry, Pineapple Juice, Spices, Fermented Wine Aroma
Although this bean looks darker in color, a bit like a dark-roasted coffee bean, this is only because the anaerobic processing causes more sugar to adhere to the surface of the coffee beans, and during roasting the bean surface undergoes a stronger caramelization reaction. In fact, it is still a medium-light roast, so Front Street Coffee suggests that the parameters used during brewing still follow the brewing formula for light-roasted coffee:
Front Street Coffee’s Pour-Over Recommendation
Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15Grind Size: Fine granulated sugar coarseness (75% passing through a No. 20 sieve)No joke, the flavor is truly very unique! At high temperature, we can taste a very clear blackcurrant flavor, accompanied by the sweet-and-sour notes of orange and pineapple, like tasting a glass of mixed juice dominated by blackcurrant. In addition, in the aftertaste after swallowing, you can also perceive chocolate, spices, and a fermented wine aroma. The layers are rich and unique—very good! The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
