The United Arab Emirates has a new National Brewers Cup Champion. Frederick Bejo is the Co-founder and Green Coffee Buyer at one of the UAE’s leading specialty coffee roasteries, Archers. He’s been busy in the coffee industry for 12 years now. 10 of those in the UAE.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about his win is that he decided to compete just 2 months before the competition. We were super keen to get hold of his recipe. Which he was very happy to share.

Tell us about how you approached the competition

Coffee is already a very complex product, so I always prefer to break down the complexity into a simple way. I always prefer to brew coffee using an immersion method. There are less variables to consider and there’s less movement – that allows the brew process to be easy, efficient & consistent.

You had quite a unique brew setup

I chose the plastic Hario Mugen Brewer and combined it with the base of the Hario Switch brewer.

The Mugen has 2 key advantages:

  1. It’s plastic. So it has a low thermal mass. Which is a good heat insulator, meaning they can efficiently trap heat which is vital for coffee extraction.
  2. The surface of the Mugen is completely flat. This removes the gap between the paper filter and the Mugen’s wall. That allows for very low bypass because all of the water can only escape through the coffee grounds in the middle. This reduces coffee channelling and leads to higher extraction of acidity and flavors.

I combined the Mugen with a Hario Switch base to do immersion brewing. This allowed for less movement and more control of the extraction. The immersion method is used as our industry standard, because this is by far the most efficient and consistent way to brew coffee.

So what was your recipe?

It was very simple actually.

My ingredients:

  • 14 g light roast coffee
  • 190ml water
  • 600 -700 micron grind size (22 clicks on a Comandante)

The first pour is 40ml water at 88 degrees Celsius, which is left to bloom for 30 – 35 seconds. The lower bloom temperature ensures no over extraction from the fine particles. The result is a cleaner & sweeter aftertaste.

The second pour is 150ml water at 93 degrees Celsius. The higher temperature maximizes the extraction of flavors and acidities.

Between 1.00 and 1.10 minutes, give it a gentle spin. The spin is to achieve a flat bed ensuring all the coffee grounds are extracted evenly. The timing of spin is to allow the coffees to settle down before releasing the Hario Switch valve.

Release the valve at 1:30 – 1:35 minutes. 

The total brew time is 3:00 mins.

Close the valve. 

What coffee did you use?

We used three exceptional coffees:

  • Ethiopian Natural 74158 Variety by Daye Bensa
  • Colombia Natural Carbonic Macerated Geisha by Mikava Coffee
  • Panama Los Alpes Natural Geisha Lot. 134 by Janson Coffee

How did you prepare?

We created the competition concept, found the competition coffees and finalised the routine in less than 60 days. But more important than how I prepared is the fact that I could not have achieved all of that, and ultimately the win, without the support of a phenomenal team:

  • Kemal Risyad, Archers’ Head Roaster and our Co-founder, was my lead coach and also the one who actually roasted the competition coffee
  • Romeo Perello was my technical coach who helped my streamline my workflow  
  • Michael Gono & Karen Gatmaitan were my logistics team, helping me organize my equipment, my practice and the competition itself, making everything it smooth and easy 

Congratulations again Fred. And thank you for sharing.

Photography by The Need for Coffee and Archers.