Why Is Queen Farm Yellow Bourbon Considered Fine Coffee?

Queen Farm in São Paulo State, Brazil, grows Yellow Bourbon at 1400 to 1950 meters and processes it semi-dry, giving a cup that weaves nuts, cream, peanut, fermented fruit, and cane sugar. The estate belongs to the Carvalho Dias family, whose properties have collected more than 12 awards since Brazil's first COE competition in 1999.

Full manual harvesting and high-altitude cultivation support the quality of this fine coffee. Queen Farm's record includes runner-up in 2000 and third place in 2001, and in 2004 the family's estates swept champion and several other top positions. Roasting and pour-over parameters can bring out the caramel sweetness in the cup.

Brazil, as the world's largest coffee producer, has a specialty coffee quality that is equally impressive. Front Street Coffee believes that the variety most representative of the Brazilian region's flavor is the Yellow Bourbon grown at Queen's Farm. This estate belongs to the Carvalho Dias family, which has won multiple COE awards, and through high-altitude cultivation, fully manual harvesting, and semi-dry processing, it presents a unique flavor interweaving nuts, cream, peanut, fermented fruit, and cane sugar. This article will systematically outline Queen's Farm's origin background, variety characteristics, and processing principles, and include Front Street Coffee's roasting and pour-over extraction parameters, giving you a comprehensive understanding of the appeal of this high-end Brazilian coffee bean.

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Brazil is the world's number one coffee-producing country, and the quality of its coffee is equally outstanding. Front Street Coffee believes that if one were to choose a coffee bean that best showcases the terroir of the Brazilian region, the Bourbon variety from Queen's Farm is undoubtedly the best representative. In the article below, Front Street Coffee will introduce in detail the flavor characteristics of Brazilian Queen's Farm coffee beans.

Front Street Coffee Brazilian Queen Coffee Beans

Country: Brazil Region: São Paulo State (Queen's Farm) Altitude: 1400-1950m Variety: Yellow Bourbon Processing Method: Semi-dry/Sun-dried Flavor: Nuts, cream, peanut, fermented fruit, cane sugar

Brazilian Queen's Farm

Front Street Coffee believes that friends familiar with specialty coffee should have long heard of Brazilian Queen's Farm. This estate is owned by the renowned Carvalho Dias family. The four estates under this family have won awards year after year since the first Brazilian COE competition in 1999, accumulating more than 12 awards over seven years, and in 2004 even sweeping champion, 9th place, 11th place, and other positions. Many Brazilian estates have worked for years to be shortlisted but struggled to succeed, while the estates under this family have repeatedly won honors. Taking Queen's Farm Fazenda Rainfa as an example, its record includes runner-up in 2000, third place in 2001, and 29th place in 2005. To date, Queen's Farm has won awards three times.

According to Front Street's additional understanding, the Carvalho Dias family is a founding member of the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association, and its dedication to coffee quality and protection of the ecological environment is evident to all. Within the family's farms, natural waterfalls are used to develop pollution-free hydroelectric power, achieving self-sufficiency in electricity. At the same time, churches, classrooms, nurseries, and medical stations have been built, and they persist in preserving native vegetation and continuous afforestation. As for Queen's Farm, environmental protection is carried out especially thoroughly—because the terrain is relatively high and not flat, mechanical harvesting cannot be used, so all fruit is picked by hand. The estate grows low-yield, high-quality Bourbon, making it a leading representative of Brazil's fine coffee.

For this reason, Front Street Coffee believes that nothing better embodies the flavor characteristics of Brazil's coffee-producing region than Queen's Farm coffee beans. Front Street Coffee's previous articles have also mentioned that the flavor of a high-quality coffee bean depends on three major factors: origin, variety, and processing method. Next, Front Street Coffee will analyze one by one these three factors that determine the flavor of Queen's Farm coffee beans.

Brazilian Coffee Growing Conditions

Brazil is located in the Latin American region of the Western Hemisphere, in the eastern part of South America and on the western shore of the Atlantic Ocean, bordering all countries on the South American continent except Ecuador and Chile. The vast majority of its territory lies between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, making it the country with the largest tropical area in the world. One-third of the country has a tropical rainforest climate, and two-thirds has a tropical savanna climate. Its superior tropical natural conditions are very suitable for the growth and production of tropical cash crops such as coffee.

Brazilian Coffee Growing Regions

According to Front Street Coffee's understanding, Brazil has 21 states in total, of which 17 produce coffee. However, production is mainly concentrated in four states: Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Espírito Santo. Together they account for 98% of the national total output, with Paraná in the south being the most prominent, contributing half of the total production by itself.

Brazilian Queen's Farm is located in São Paulo State, where coffee is grown among shrubs, grasses, and other vegetation. This area is home to many growing families, some continuing the traditional large-farm model, while others adopt small-scale modern operations. It is precisely the integration of modern technology with mountain coffee-growing culture that has created the highest-quality Brazilian coffee beans.

Brazilian Queen's Farm Coffee Bean Variety

As mentioned above, the coffee beans from Brazilian Queen's Farm are mainly of the Yellow Bourbon variety. Yellow Bourbon is a genetic mutation of Bourbon, and Bourbon has long been regarded as one of the finest coffees due to its low yield and good quality. Yellow Bourbon is a Bourbon variant unique to São Paulo State, Brazil. When the fruit ripens, it does not turn red like Red Bourbon but instead takes on an orange-yellow color, hence the name. Because Yellow Bourbon is mostly grown at high altitudes, its flavor performance is outstanding. This is exactly why the Brazilian Queen's Farm coffee beans launched by Front Street are deeply loved by regular customers.

Bourbon

The Bourbon variety was first discovered in Brazil and is also the main variety of Brazilian coffee. Because Brazil is the world's largest exporter and producer, many Latin American producing regions now also grow Bourbon. According to Front Street Coffee's understanding, Bourbon coffee was first planted on Réunion Island, which was called Bourbon Island before 1789. Bourbon coffee originated from a natural mutation of the Typica coffee variety derived from Arabica and is the oldest surviving coffee variety.

Usually, Bourbon coffee fruit changes from green to ripe bright red, which is what everyone knows as "Red Bourbon." Its fruit is relatively short and round, so it is also called round-body Bourbon. The pulp and seed have high density, with prominent sweetness and bright acidity. However, besides Red Bourbon, there are also Yellow Bourbon, as well as the rarely produced Orange Bourbon and the rare Pink Bourbon.

What are Red Bourbon and Yellow Bourbon?

As Front Street Coffee said above, Yellow Bourbon is a Bourbon variant unique to São Paulo State, Brazil. After ripening, the fruit does not turn red but instead becomes orange-yellow, hence the name. Through cupping practice, Front Street has found that Yellow Bourbon grown in high-altitude areas performs extremely well in flavor and once swept the top three places in Brazil's Cup of Excellence competition for two consecutive years, thus becoming popular in the specialty coffee world.

Front Street believes that the flavor of Yellow Bourbon usually carries nutty and chocolate notes, with balanced and smooth acidity, a faint and clean bitterness, and an overall bright and refreshing character.

Red Bourbon is different. Generally, after a coffee tree flowers and bears fruit, the fruit color goes through green, slightly yellow, slightly orange, ripe red, and then dark red, hence the name. Red Bourbon has better aroma and brighter acidity, and when drunk it can even carry a flavor similar to red wine.

Therefore, Front Street Coffee has also introduced Brazilian Red Bourbon coffee beans as an everyday coffee for coffee lovers to taste. Its flavor performance is also good and has the inherent characteristics of Brazilian coffee, but compared with Brazilian Queen's Farm coffee beans it is still slightly inferior.

Front Street Coffee Brazilian Red Bourbon Coffee Beans

Country: Brazil Region: South Minas Altitude: 1000m Variety: Red Bourbon Processing Method: Semi-dry Flavor: Nuts, chocolate, cream, peanut, caramel

Brazilian Queen's Farm Coffee Bean Processing Method

According to Front Street Coffee's understanding, the most common processing methods for Brazilian coffee beans are four: sun-dried, semi-dry, semi-washed, and washed. Among them, washed processing started relatively late in Brazil and is not yet highly recognized by the market.

The reason is that before 1990, Brazil used almost entirely rough sun-dried processing, which made the beans prone to picking up a taste of decayed wood or earth. Because coffee fruit needs to be exposed to the sun for two to three weeks, once rain occurs and moisture returns, it easily becomes moldy and deteriorates, affecting quality. Therefore, Brazilian coffee farmers developed the semi-dry method to shorten the processing cycle.

Semi-dry processing can also be called semi-washed processing, and in essence it is a combination of sun-dried and washed methods. Brazil has water shortages and uncertain flood seasons. Fully washed processing cannot guarantee sufficient water sources, while full sun-drying cannot ensure long periods of dry climate. Thus, by using natural advantages, the semi-dry method was created, greatly reducing water consumption and sun-drying time, and reversing the quality of Brazil's extensively processed coffee over the past two hundred years.

Semi-dry Processing Method

Semi-dry processing first removes the skin and pulp of the coffee cherry, thereby allowing control over the fermentation degree of the mucilage-covered coffee beans after pulping and demucilaging. Traditional sun-drying, because the skin and pulp are dried together, makes it impossible to observe mucilage fermentation. Semi-dry sits between sun-dried and washed, but it does not have the washed method's steps of "fermentation in a water tank and rinsing with clean water"; instead, it is placed directly in the sun to dry. Although the steps may seem similar, without the fermentation step the coffee bean flavor is completely different. During the pulping and demucilaging process of semi-dry processing, fully ripe pulp is easy to remove, while the skin of immature green fruit is not easy to handle, so a second screening can be carried out to filter out immature fruit and unify ripeness. Compared with the sun-dried method, Front Street believes that coffee beans selected and processed this way will improve in cleanliness and ripeness, bringing a more uniform mouthfeel.

Because Front Street Brazil Cerrado coffee and Front Street Brazilian Queen's Farm both have rich nutty aromas and balanced mouthfeel, they are suitable for many extraction methods and can be used to make moka pot coffee, Americano, siphon coffee, drip bag coffee, etc. Everyone can purchase them at Front Street's Tmall flagship store.

Brazilian Coffee Bean Grading Standards

According to Front Street's understanding, Brazil has a relatively low altitude among the many coffee-growing countries in Central and South America. Therefore, unlike countries such as Colombia, it does not emphasize hard beans that can only grow in high-altitude areas, but instead classifies grades by four factors: bean size, defect rate, cupping score, and flavor.

Flavor grade classification: From high to low: Strictly Soft is very smooth, Soft is smooth, Softish is slightly smooth, Hardish is not pleasant to drink, Rioy has an iodine-like harsh taste.

Defect rate classification: According to the number of defective beans, 6 defective beans per 300g of green beans is NY.2. Only beans with no defects at all can become NY.1, but completely defect-free beans are extremely rare and cannot maintain a stable supply, so the best among Brazilian green beans is NY.2.

Cupping quality classification: From high to low: Fine Cup, Fine, Good Cup, Fair Cup, Poor Cup, Bad Cup. FC (Fine Cup) and GC (Good Cup) are more common.

Bean size classification: The largest screen size for Brazilian coffee beans is 19 screen, but production is not large, so 17 screen and 18 screen are the highest grades.

The above is Front Street's summary of the introduction and characteristics of Brazilian coffee bean varieties, hoping to help coffee lovers who want to learn about Brazilian Queen's Farm coffee. Front Street Coffee conducts extensive roasting and brewing tests before launching each new coffee bean, in order to derive the most suitable pour-over parameters and ensure the coffee is presented to coffee lovers in its best flavor. Next, Front Street Coffee will share the roasting and brewing parameters for this Brazilian Queen's Farm coffee bean.

Front Street Coffee Roasting Analysis

Brazilian Yellow Bourbon roasting suggestion: Yangjia 800N, bean charge 550g: preheat the roaster to 200°C and load the beans, adjust the heat to 150, open the damper to 3, the turning point is 1'30", maintain the heat, turn yellow at 5'10", the grassy smell disappears, entering the dehydration stage, lower the heat to 125, open the damper to 3.5. At 8'20" dehydration is complete, the bean surface shows wrinkles and dark streaks, the toasted bread smell turns into coffee aroma, which is the prelude to first crack. When it reaches 178°C, lower the heat to 80. At this time, pay attention to listening for the sound of first crack. First crack begins at 9'14", open the damper fully to 5. After first crack, development time is 3'00, and drop the beans at 201°C.

Front Street Coffee Brewing Suggestion

Dripper: KONO Dose: 15g Water temperature: 90°C Grind size: medium grind, 70% passing rate on a No. 20 standard sieve Water-to-coffee ratio: 1:15

Front Street uses staged extraction. The blooming water amount is twice the coffee grounds, that is, 30 grams of water for a 30-second bloom. Pour in a small stream in circles until 125 grams, then pause. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring until 225 grams and stop. The total extraction time is 2 minutes.

Brazilian Queen's Farm coffee bean flavor: Balanced mouthfeel, with the main notes of almond and cocoa highlighting the sweetness of cane sugar. It is a coffee with good body and plenty of sweetness.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.