Does coffee taste better iced or hot? This is an enduring topic, and so is fancy coffee.

During the summer vacation, Front Street shared with you a coconut coffee series that was popular all over the Internet. The coconut milk (raw coconut) latte mentioned in it attracted a lot of home parties to successfully copy it because of its wonderful flavor collision.

Recently, with the autumn weather getting stronger in the northern part of the country, some friends wanted to challenge new methods and tried to make a heated version of it like a hot latte. However, they found that the taste was completely different from that of iced drinks. Not only was the strong coffee aroma almost completely covered up by the sweet coconut milk flavor, the various flavors seemed particularly separated in the mouth, and there was also a sudden sour taste after swallowing. It can be said that it was a complete upset. What exactly caused this?

Because coconut milk or coconut milk is very sweet, it must be paired with espresso that is full of coffee flavor. Therefore, the medium-dark roasted Front Street blend bean series is the first choice. It is best to buy Front Street Classic Blend and Front Street Commercial Blend. They add a small amount of Robusta to Arabica coffee to make the oil richer and exude the aroma of butter and roasted hazelnuts.

First find the “culprit” that makes coffee taste bad

We already know that the method of drinking iced coconut milk latte is very simple. To put it bluntly, the milk in the latte is replaced with coconut milk/coconut milk. The thicker the base, the richer the coconut aroma will be, and the sweeter the coffee will be after adding ice cubes.

Front Street also found that compared to the mixed formula we used at the time (Gold Medal Gouda Coconut Milk + Fresh Pasture Milk), most people actually prefer to buy the ready-made base directly - boxed thick coconut milk. After all, it saves trouble and effort, and there is no need to add additional sugar. Front Street learned through conversations that the friend who overturned his car used this type of product.

Why does thick coconut milk become unpleasant to drink when heated?

Different from the milk we usually use, the new generation of thick coconut milk products is obtained by squeezing coconut pulp into juice. It is specially developed for making drinks or coffee. In order to make their taste smoother and richer, and more suitable for coffee, merchants will also add some sugar, hydrogenated oil and other ingredients during production, so drinking it empty may be slightly sweet. When you add espresso and ice cubes and stir together, it will immediately become mellow and mellow.

Back to the topic, since this type of thick coconut milk contains a certain amount of fat and protein, when heated to a scalding high temperature, the fat will separate from the water and form small solidified particles. At this time, the protein will also be denatured at high temperatures, and the liquid will gradually become viscous and may coagulate. This is the main reason why many people think that using thick coconut milk to make hot latte is more difficult than using ordinary milk.

The lines of milk foam latte art made with thick coconut milk tend to float.

In addition, its pH value will continue to change with temperature, resulting in a certain degree of acidification of coconut milk. High temperature will make the taste of coconut milk stronger and sweeter, so the coffee will taste sweet, greasy and sour.

How to properly make a hot coconut milk latte?

There are actually many ways to make a thick coconut milk latte into a hot drink that is both delicious and not sour, and there is one right here on Front Street: add some milk. There are several benefits of adding milk to thick coconut milk and heating it together. Firstly, it can neutralize part of the overly sweet coconut milk flavor. Secondly, it can make the taste of the latte richer and go in the direction of nut butter. Finally, it can effectively prevent the acidification of coconut milk.

In order to find the appropriate ratio of espresso, thick coconut milk, and milk, Front Street used Sunflower·Nuanyang produced in the store as the extraction object, and used a large ceramic cup with a capacity of 300ml. They tried multiple mixing plans. Finally, they found that a mixture of double concentrate (36ml) + 240ml made a hot latte with the best effect. The mixing ratio of thick coconut milk and milk is 1:1, that is, 1 part of thick coconut milk corresponds to 1 part of milk.

First, use 20g of coffee powder to extract 36g of concentrated coffee and pour it into a cup. Pour 120ml of thick coconut milk and 120ml of fresh milk into a milk vat (if the coffee has a stronger flavor, it can be made into about 200ml of Australian white, corresponding to 80ml of thick coconut milk + 80ml of fresh milk), then make milk foam suitable for latte art, and finally blend the two evenly to complete.

During the whipping process, we'd better control the intake of more air and "froze" for about 4 to 5 seconds. This can make the milk foam as thick as possible. When drawing the picture, we can better control the release flow and make the white lines more distinct. In addition, the temperature of coconut milk should not be too high. If you like a stronger coffee flavor, you can heat it to about 45-50℃; if you prefer sweet coconut milk, you can boil it a little more and let the temperature fall between 50-55℃.

However, this method also has shortcomings. Although heating the thick coconut milk and milk together solves the problem of inconsistent flavors, and the basic pattern can be drawn after fusion, the defoaming speed is extremely fast. After only a few minutes, the lines just made have become a little blurred, and the entire foam layer has begun to collapse.

Therefore, for beauty enthusiasts, Front Street Club recommends making it look like Dirty, that is, pouring the concentrate directly on the warm coconut milk. The specific operations will not be shown one by one here. You can refer to the previous article "Why is the Dirty you make not layered?"

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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