[notes on looking for beans in Qianjie] A special topic on sapphires of Fire Phoenix Manor in Costa Rica

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Costa Rica Central Valley Cumbres Del Poas Zahiro

Costa Rica Fire Phoenix Estate Sapphire

Region: Central Valley

Manor: Fire Phoenix Manor

Altitude: 1600m

Breeds: Kadura, Kaduai

Grade: SHB

Treatment: Solarization

Production area

Costa Rica is located in the Central American Isthmus. It is also regulated by the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean currents and sea breezes. Many towering volcanoes with an altitude of 2000 meters have fertile volcanic ash, mild and suitable temperatures, and stable and abundant rainfall. All of these are factors that make coffee become one of Costa Rica's main agricultural products. Coffee berries can grow slowly in fertile volcanic ash soil and high altitude cold environment, breeding coffee beans with complete and rich flavor. And Costa Rica's high latitudes produced coffee beans are famous in the world, rich, mild taste, but extremely acidic, coffee beans here are carefully processed, because of this, there is high quality coffee.

Central Valley

The Central Valley region was also the earliest coffee growing area in Costa Rica, and then moved to other regions to develop the country's coffee industry. The annual rainfall was moderate at 118 inches, and the annual average temperature was only 19 ° C. In addition, the altitude was high, so the beans were hard and fragrant, smooth, high acidity, full beans, and rich aroma. The coffee in this region was the earliest coffee growing area in Costa Rica. Rich volcanic soil, sometimes with chocolate flavor.

About the Manor

Located in the foothills of the Poas Volcano in the Central Costa Rican Valley, Phoenix Manor is an early producer of honeyed and sun-cured coffee in Central and South America. It is an organically grown coffee plantation. The owner believes organic farming is the best option for the environment and the health of his family, and despite many technical and organizational challenges, he continues to believe so.

He made a name for himself when he entered the boutique coffee contest in 2009. During the harvest season, the Brix meter, which is often used in the wine industry, measures the sugar content of the fruit, and determines the best time and treatment for harvesting according to the Brix sugar content. Brix values for general fruits are 14 for apples, 12 for lemons and 18 for passion fruits, but coffee cherries for fire phoenix can reach 21-22%.

The estate attaches great importance to the concept of environmentally friendly treatment (column: rainwater collection for coffee treatment) and uses earthworm farming (worm compost) for the production of organic compost to make the planting process completely free of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The natural processing of sapphire (Zahiro) is quite labor-intensive. Hand-harvested cherries with high sugar content are placed in African elevated sheds for about 10 days, and then placed in plastic covered greenhouses to create more direct heat and continue to dry until the moisture content reaches 11.5%. The slow drying process allows the beans to develop more natural sweetness from the inside, but it also requires more care and constant stirring. At the end, the red cherries turn black, giving off aromas of fruitcake, brown sugar and even sherry!

Varieties (Kadura, Kaduai)

Kadura is a variety of bourbon, discovered in Brazil in 1937, yield and disease resistance are better than bourbon, and the tree is shorter, easy to harvest, adaptable, do not need shade trees, direct exposure to the sun can also be vibrant, commonly known as sun coffee (Sun Coffee). Kadura is suitable for planting in high altitude areas from 700 meters to 1700 meters. It has strong altitude adaptability, but the higher the altitude, the better the flavor and the lower the production capacity. This is the fate of fine beans.

Kaduai is also a hybrid of Arabica, a hybrid of Mundo Novo Mondonovo (New World) and Caturra Kadura. It has better resistance to natural disasters, especially wind and rain. It inherits the advantages of low tree body of Kadura and changes the shortcomings of Mondonovo. Another advantage is that the fruit is solid and difficult to fall off in case of strong wind, which makes up for the weakness of Arabica fruit.

Raw beans look different in overall length, smell in addition to raw beans should have grass flavor, but also exudes a light scented tea and rich fruit aroma.

Treatment (solarization)

This bean is sun-cured. Sunlight treatment is the oldest and most primitive treatment method of coffee beans, which is to place the harvested coffee cherries on the terrace, and even directly expose them to sunlight on the roadside (about 27 days-30 days), and to dry the moisture from 60% to only 12% or so.

curve analysis

This Costa Rican Phoenix Sapphire has rich berry and tropical fruit aromas. In order to retain the rich fruit flavor and sweetness of this bean, the front street baker uses medium heat to bake this bean.

Baking machine Yangjia 800N (baking capacity 300g)

When the furnace temperature reaches 170℃, put it into the pot, open the damper 3, fire power 110, return temperature 136 ", 97.9℃; when the furnace temperature reaches 140℃, open the damper 4; at this time, the bean surface turns yellow, the grass smell disappears completely, and enters the dehydration stage. When the furnace temperature reaches 166℃, adjust the fire power to 80℃, and the damper remains unchanged;

8 17", the bean surface appears ugly beard wrinkles and black stripes, toast flavor obviously changed to coffee fragrance, can be defined as a prelude to explosion, this time to hear the sound of a burst point, to 9 00" to start a burst, the damper will be adjusted to 5 (adjust the fire to be very careful, not small to no burst sound), a burst after the development of 2 05 ", 195 ℃ pot.

Agtron bean color 69.3 (top), Agtron pink 75.4 (bottom), Roast Delta 6.1.

cup mapping

Flavor: Berry, tropical fruit, fermented wine, brown sugar

Front Street Coffee Share Brewing Parameters

Recommended cooking method: hand brewing

Filter cup: Hario V60

Water temperature: 90

Powder: 15g

Powder water ratio: 1:16

Grindability: medium and fine grinding (BG 6k: 58% pass rate of No.20 sieve of Chinese standard)

Brewing method: staged extraction

Steaming with 34g water for 30 seconds, injecting water in a circle to 127g with small water flow, stopping injecting water to 240g when the water level drops to expose the powder bed, removing the filter cup when the water level drops to expose the powder bed, and extracting for 205 ".

Flavor description

Dry nose with distinct tropical fruit, fermentation and sweet spices, wet nose with berry and honey aromas;

Strawberry, tropical fruit, fermented wine, honey at the end, cocoa, smooth overall taste, distinct flavors, clear sweetness.