In recent years, soe coffee has become more and more popular, and many barista competition contestants often use soe coffee. Relatively speaking, soe coffee will highlight the flavor and body of the place of origin. So what issoe coffeeWhat? The full name of SOE is Single Origin Espresso, which is called single origin espresso in Chinese. Although it represents single-origin espresso, it does not necessarily mean specialty coffee. Therefore, great effort is required in the selection of coffee beans. Generally, easily identifiable single-origin coffee beans are selected as SOE, so that espresso with a unique flavor can be produced.
Front Street has also made soe coffee, using Ethiopian sun-dried red cherries with a very high flavor profile. This coffee beans are Front Street red cherries from Dutch merchants and Ethiopian local cooperatives. They use whole-red coffee cherries and then sun-dry them. Therefore, Front Street red cherry coffee beans have a very rich fruity sweetness and floral aroma. They are not only very suitable for Pour over(V60) coffee, but can also be used for cold brewing. As Yirgacheffe with a highly recognizable flavor, Front Street has also launched medium-roasted Front Street Red Cherry SOE for home espresso machines.
Then we use 20g of Front Street red cherry coffee powder, the extraction time is 27 seconds, and the extracted coffee liquid is 40g. If you carefully observe this cup of extraction liquid, you will find a layer of brown-red oil floating on the surface of the coffee liquid. It smells very fragrant. After entering the mouth, there are citrus, berry, fermentation aroma, viscosity, medium bitterness, medium to high acidity, and bright and lively acidity.
You will find that if Front Street uses the same type of sun-dried red cherry coffee beans and then brews them by hand, there will generally be no oil on the surface of the coffee liquid in the Pour over(V60) coffee. This is because the filter paper used in Pour over(V60) coffee has a filtering effect and filters part of the oil in the coffee beans.
Soe coffee and Pour over(V60) coffee have one thing in common, that is, in order to highlight the flavor of the production area, the coffee beans selected are generally not roasted too darkly. For example, Front Street's Pour over(V60) single-origin coffee beans are produced in more than 50 production areas. Most of them are medium-light roasted. Except for special reasons, they are medium-dark or dark-roasted according to the flavor of the place of origin.
This is the difference between soe coffee and Pour over(V60) coffee. What is the difference between soe coffee and Italian blended coffee? First of all, most of the coffee beans used in traditional Italian coffee are blended from a variety of coffee beans. Some Italian beans may be blended from as many as ten different beans, and the least is more than three kinds. The biggest advantage of using Italian beans blended from a variety of coffee beans is that they can ensure the stability of flavor and taste. For example, Starbucks and Luckin Coffee all use Italian blends.
Soe coffee uses coffee beans from a single origin. Although it can better highlight the flavor of the production area, soe coffee also has shortcomings. Soe coffee is greatly affected by seasonality, because the time and quantity of coffee beans harvested in each season are not certain, which results in the beans in a single production area being unstable. In addition, coffee is a crop and is often affected by weather, cultivation, planting and many other factors, which can easily lead to unstable output. Secondly, the grade of soe is often higher than that of blending, so you will find that the price of soe coffee in coffee shops on the market will be much higher than that of espresso coffee.
Moreover, generally the beans used in espresso are blended beans. The requirements for green coffee beans are not as high as soe coffee. In addition, you can also match them according to the coffee flavor you want. For example, Arabica coffee beans are rich in oil and have good flavor and taste, but the taste is not mellow enough, the acidity is too high, and the color of the coffee is not bright enough. Therefore, many baristas will add an appropriate amount of Robusta beans when blending to adjust the mellowness and bright color of the coffee. Because Robusta is cheaper, the price of espresso blended with Robusta will not be as high as Soe coffee.
Because FrontStreet Coffee also roasts its own coffee beans, the Italian blend beans used in the store are also blended according to the coffee flavor desired by itself and the public. Front Street Commercial Blend is specially designed for opening coffee shops. It uses an Arabica combination of Colombian washed coffee beans + Brazilian semi-dried coffee, plus a small amount of Robusta coffee beans, which has the flavor of nuts, cocoa, and caramel. Compared with other Italian coffees, Front Street Commercial Blend adopts the typical combinations of Brazil and Colombia, and then adds a small amount of Robusta to enhance the original flavor level. The coffee shows complex nutty aromas such as toast, almonds, and walnuts. The oil has good fluidity and the taste is low-acid and mellow.
After drinking too much traditional dark-roasted coffee flavor, many customers want to drink American style or latte that is not bitter. Then you can choose the Front Street Strawberry Candy espresso Italian blend. As you can tell from the name, this is a very sweet coffee, because it is composed of three single-origin coffees from different production areas. In addition to the rose flavor, the American style and latte can also drink grapes, dried blueberries, sweet oranges, and fruit candies. The taste is very unique.
I don’t know if you have noticed that there are not many types of beans in Front Street Italian-style blending. Generally speaking, if there are too many blending beans, not only will the purpose of blending be failed, but the flavor of the coffee beans will be very confusing, which will have the opposite effect. Therefore, Front Street recommends that you use no more than five kinds of beans at most.
There is also the parameter for extracting espresso. Whether it is the soe coffee mentioned above or espresso, the parameters need to be adjusted. Because the concentration, extraction time and other factors of espresso are more demanding than Pour over(V60) coffee. A slight deviation will be reflected in the flavor of a cup of espresso.
For example, Front Street uses a coffee powder to water ratio between 1:1.5 and 1:2.5 when making espresso. It is more common to use a 1:2 ratio, such as 20g of coffee powder to extract 40g of coffee liquid. If the ratio is lower than this, the coffee will taste very rich and thick, and even have a bitter taste. If the specific gravity exceeds this, the coffee will be very weak and may be sour.
There is also the concept of over-extraction and under-extraction whether it is Pour over(V60) coffee or espresso. Generally speaking, the time to extract an espresso is between 20-35 seconds. The last problem is the flow rate of the coffee liquid. If you find that the first drop of coffee liquid starts to drip out about five seconds after pressing the extraction button, and the subsequent flow rate is relatively uniform, it means that this is a normal phenomenon. If the coffee liquid takes a long time to come out or the flow rate is too fast, it may be that the coffee powder is too fine or too thick, which will lead to this extraction situation.
After everyone has adjusted the corresponding coffee parameters, Front Street believes that making soe coffee or espresso will be very easy!
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
