An Unexpected Guatemala

V60

A conical pour-over brewer known for clarity, flow sensitivity, and a more open expression of the coffee.

Pulsar Mini

A small low-bypass brewer, meaning that most of the water is forced to pass through the coffee bed rather than escaping around it.

Coffee Sheet

24Terre Guatemala San Gerardo

First Brewing Direction

A coffee to understand through sweetness, texture and warmth.

This Guatemala quickly showed that it was not going to behave like a delicate, high-altitude washed Ethiopian coffee. It did not ask for extreme clarity. It did not need very high contrast between acidity and sweetness. It had a naturally full body, almost no acidity, and a warm aromatic structure built around chestnut, marron glacé, toasted pistachio, and sweet cocoa.

For that reason, I wanted to test two different ways of reading it.

The first was the V60, a brewer that can give a cleaner and more open cup. With this method, I wanted to see whether the coffee could keep its body while becoming slightly more transparent.

The second was the Pulsar Mini, a brewer that usually gives more body, more contact control, and a denser cup. With this method, I wanted to see whether the coffee could become more complete and more aromatic without turning heavy or bitter.

Test One

V60: Clarity Without Losing Body

For the V60, the best recipe came with a slightly finer grind than my first attempt. I used 82 clicks on the Kingrinder K6, 15 g of coffee, 225 g of water, and a water temperature of 92°C.

The recipe was deliberately simple. No swirl, no agitation, no complicated pouring structure. I wanted a clean baseline and a repeatable method.

The method was straightforward. I started with a 45 g bloom for 30 seconds. The bloom is the first small pour used to saturate the coffee bed and allow trapped gases to escape before the main extraction begins. After that, I continued with a single pour up to 225 g. I did not swirl the brewer during or after the bloom, and I did not add any extra agitation.

This recipe gave the best V60 result of the day.

Compared with the version ground at 85 clicks, the 82-click version was aromatically better. The cup felt more complete. The body remained very present, but the flavours were better connected. The chestnut note was clear, the marron glacé appeared more convincingly after the sip, and the toasted pistachio sat quietly in the background.

What I liked about this V60 was that it did not try to transform the coffee into something it was not. It did not make it light or sparkling. It did not create acidity where there was none. Instead, it gave a slightly cleaner expression of a naturally full-bodied coffee.

The aftertaste was one of the most enjoyable parts. After swallowing, the marron glacé note became clearer. It was not just sweetness in a generic sense. It had that cooked chestnut, glazed, dessert-like quality that stayed on the palate.

Test Two

Pulsar Mini: More Body, More Presence

The Pulsar Mini gave a different interpretation of the same coffee.

For this brewer, the best recipe used 15 g of coffee, 225 g of water at 92°C, and 85 clicks on the Kingrinder K6. The approach was based on a short closed-valve bloom followed by a fully open continuous pour.

The Pulsar Mini allows the brewer to control the flow using a valve. When the valve is closed, water remains in contact with the coffee, creating an immersion phase. When the valve is opened, the brew drains through the coffee bed. This makes it possible to combine immersion and percolation in the same recipe.

The recipe began with 45 g of water and the valve closed. After the bloom phase, I opened the valve fully and continued pouring up to 225 g, maintaining roughly 1 cm of water above the coffee bed. This created a stable, continuous flow while keeping the bed submerged enough to avoid a dry or uneven extraction.

The result was more intense than the V60.

Not necessarily sweeter, which is an important distinction. The final sweetness was broadly similar. The marron glacé note was still there, the chestnut was still dominant, and the pistachio remained more discreet. But the Pulsar Mini increased the general presence of the coffee. The body became fuller, the texture denser, and the aromatic profile more complex.

During another test, I kept the valve closed for one full minute, creating a complete immersion phase for longer than necessary. That version brought out a slightly sharp bitterness. It was not catastrophic, but it was enough to show that this coffee does not need aggressive immersion. It benefits from control, but not from over-extraction through prolonged contact.

Method Comparison

V60 vs Pulsar Mini

The most interesting part of this test was not simply deciding which method was better. It was seeing how the same coffee changed depending on the brewer.

The V60 and the Pulsar Mini did not contradict each other. They revealed two compatible sides of the coffee.

If someone wanted to try this coffee for the first time and preferred a cup that was full-bodied but not too intense, I would recommend the V60. It gives a more open version of the coffee while still preserving its warm and sweet character.

If someone wanted more body, more aromatic complexity, and a denser experience, I would recommend the Pulsar Mini or a similar low-bypass brewer. This method seems particularly well suited to the coffee’s natural profile.

What I Learned

Six notes from this first test

Final Brewing Recap

The two recipes I would keep

Closing Notes

An unexpected find worth exploring further

What surprised me most about this coffee was not only the cup itself, but the context in which I found it.

A supermarket shelf is not where I usually expect to discover a coffee with a clear origin, a named plantation, identified varieties, processing information, tasting notes, and an SCA score printed on the bag. That does not automatically make a coffee exceptional, but it does create curiosity. And in this case, that curiosity was rewarded.

The 24Terre Guatemala San Gerardo did not behave like a delicate, high-acidity filter coffee. It was not floral, sparkling, or tea-like. Instead, it offered something warmer and more comforting: a full-bodied cup with a strong chestnut presence, a surprisingly clear marron glacé aftertaste, discreet toasted pistachio, and small touches of sweet cocoa.

The V60 showed that the coffee could remain clean and readable without losing its body. The Pulsar Mini showed that it could become deeper, denser, and more complex when brewed with a low-bypass approach.

I would not describe this as a coffee to chase acidity with. I would describe it as a coffee to understand through sweetness, texture, and warmth.

This first article belongs in my testing notes because it is exactly that: a first exploration, a first attempt to understand the coffee’s direction, and a written record of what worked and what did not. But I do not think this story ends here. This Guatemala deserves more focused articles in the brewing categories themselves, where each method can be explored with more precision.