How to choose coffee beans? Which brand of coffee beans is good _ what kind of coffee beans tastes good

Whenever we search for Colombian coffee brands, we see a very familiar logo: an honest-looking old coffee farmer, Uncle Juan, wearing a white straw hat, wearing an Andean wool shoulder, sloping across a leather bag and wearing canvas shoes, and his loyal mule. This logo appears in a variety of advertisements and film and television productions, and it also makes the classic brand image of Colombian Coffee reach the world.

Colombian coffee is grown in the valleys of the Andes

Colombia's coffee-producing areas are located in the Andes, the climate varies according to the topography, the eastern plain, the south and the Pacific coast have a tropical rain forest climate, the mountains 1000-2000 meters above sea level have a subtropical climate, and the northwest has a savanna climate. The average temperature in the coffee area will vary between 18 ℃ and 22.5 ℃. Due to differences in geography and climate, whether you want round, full-bodied coffee or energetic, fruity coffee, you should be able to find it in Colombia.

The boundaries of the Colombian producing areas are very clear. the latitude of the producing areas and the topographic influence of the Andes are divided into three regions from south to north, the north, the middle and the south. The central part has two primary and secondary seasons according to the north or the south, and there are two harvest seasons in a year, the main season is from October to January, and the secondary season is from April to July. The diverse climate in the mountains makes it a harvest season all year round, and different kinds of coffee will mature at different times, so we can see busy picking in the forest in every season.

In the last century, Colombian coffee was mostly best known for the "MAM" formed by Medellin, Armenia and Manizales. With the development of boutique coffee, there are many boutique coffee producing areas in southern Colombia, including San Augustin, Huila in Huilan province, Popayan, Cauca in Cauca province, Nari ñ o in Cauca province, and Tolima in Tolima province. With its ultra-high altitude and unique handling, the coffee produced with exquisite sour aroma and fruit flavor often wins the excellent place in the Outstanding Cup competition. After many cup tests and comparisons in Qianjie, the washed coffee beans from Huilan producing area were selected in the boutique coffee producing area, as the facade representative of Colombian coffee, they were put on the shelves in the form of small packaging, so that everyone could taste the classic Colombian flavor.

Whelan province, located in the southern part of the Central Mountains in southern Colombia, is the most famous boutique coffee producing area in Colombia. The area is a hilly land surrounded by mountains, planted above 1500 meters above sea level, and has a high altitude and suitable temperature for growing high-quality Arabica beans. Excellent soil and the geographical advantages of growing coffee, Colombia's most important rivers meet here, bringing considerable wealth of water resources and moisture. The climate of the canyon slope not only prevents the cold wind from blowing in, the mountain breeze sends cool without high temperature, but Rain Water is abundant, which can be said to be a unique place for coffee cultivation.

Colombian coffee is mostly washed with traditional water.

Colombia is rich in water resources and is very suitable for washing treatment, and farms based on households are equipped with special raw bean processors (Ecomill or Eco-Pulper). Farmers pour the harvested coffee fruit into it, not only to remove the peel and pulp, but also to remove most of the pectin with only a very small amount of water, and the shell beans with a small amount of pectin go into a small pool or container. it may be a tile pool that ferments overnight, loosens the residual pectin, rinses it with clean water the next day, and finally spreads it out in the sun to dry to the target moisture content. Washing treatment can not only ensure the high quality of coffee, but also make Huilan coffee show its own flavor characteristics. This is why Qianjie preferred to choose the batch of washing treatment when selecting rations and beans.

The grading characteristics of raw beans in Colombia

At present, Colombian coffee beans are classified according to the number of items. Although the size of raw beans is not the main standard for determining the quality and flavor of coffee, many producing areas think that the particles are full, neat and large, indicating that coffee beans have reached a state of full maturity. can develop a better aroma type, but also more conducive to uniform roasting, and then form a consistent flavor.

Fixed-size sieves are usually used, and different specifications correspond to different hole sizes. For example, the size of the mesh is 17 mesh, and beans larger than this size cannot pass through the screen, so the larger the number of the screen, the larger the beans left on the screen. The most common export grades are UGQ, EP and Supremo.

Excelso UGQ 1260 (1.5%): the full name of UGQ is Usual Good Quality (usually high quality). The size of raw beans is more than 14 mesh, 1.5% of raw beans can be allowed between 12 mesh and 14 mesh, but it must be more than 12 mesh, and more than 50% of them are more than 15 mesh.

Excelso EP 1260 (10%): the full name of EP is European Preparation (European customization). The size of raw beans is more than 15 mesh, and 10% of raw beans are allowed to be less than 15 mesh, but must be more than 14 mesh.

Excelso Supremo 1260 (5%): the size of raw beans is more than 17 mesh. 5% raw beans are allowed to be less than 17 mesh, but must be more than 14 mesh.

Regardless of the size of raw beans, as long as raw beans are exported to Excelso, in other words, most Colombian coffee sacks of raw beans exported to all parts of the world must be marked with Excelso. Excelso export grade is the most widely used export standard grade of FNC and the best export grade of Colombian raw beans.

In addition, Colombia has more than 16 orders called Extra, larger than Supremo more than 18 orders called Premium, raw beans almost all uniform size in 15 mesh called Minama and so on. Colombia also has coffee beans that do not reach the Excelso export level, which is locally known as "Product of Colombia" and is commonly used to make commercial-grade instant coffee.

In Colombia, every farmer will report the number and enter the raw bean information, so that the raw bean can be traced back to the source in the future. The raw coffee beans exported from Colombia are usually named as country + producing area + grading + other. For example, the raw bean of Qianjie Huilan grain bean is Colombia Huila Supremo SC17/18 FNC.

The suggestion of cooking in Qianjie

The water-washed Huilan grain beans have both soft acidity and suitable mellow and sweet. Qianjie hopes to present the classic Columbia nut notes and retains part of the acidity, choosing medium-deep baking. Before each coffee bean is launched in Qianjie, there will be at least one cup test and evaluation, which allows us to reflect the advantages and disadvantages of coffee more objectively.

Considering that Huilan food beans are roasted in medium depth, the flavor tends to be full-bodied and mellow, and the deepening of roasting makes the texture of coffee beans more loose and coffee powder more absorbent, in order to avoid excessive extraction of miscellaneous flavor, Qianjie will choose medium grinding. In terms of temperature, Qianjie will lower the water temperature a little bit to avoid excessive charred bitterness in medium-deep roasted coffee, which is extracted with KONO filter cup.

Filter cup: KONO filter cup

Water temperature: 88 degrees Celsius

Ratio of powder to water: 1:15

Coffee powder: 15g

Grinding degree: EK43s- scale 10.5 (standard screen 20 pass rate 75%)

Pour the coffee powder into the V60 filter cup, wet the powder bed with twice as much water as the coffee powder, form a drum and steam for 30s, then fill the small water from the inside to the outside to 125g, wait for the powder bed to drop to half of the filter cup, and continue to pour the same fine water into the third section to 225g, until all the coffee liquid has been filtered and remove the filter cup for about 2 minutes.

This Colombian Huilan food bean has obvious chocolate, nut, caramel and other baking aromas, smooth and sweet, mellow thickness, clean taste and pleasant soft acidity as the temperature drops.

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