In the past, people often only had a few blends of beans to choose from when making Italian coffee, and most of them were darker roasts. The coffee produced has a more mellow and rich taste, and the oil is also very good, but the disadvantage is that the flavor will be relatively single. Therefore, for friends who like traditional styles, baristas will recommend buying beans with roasted aromas such as Front Street Classic Blend, Front Street Black Cocoa Basic Blend, and Front Street Premium Blend. They are not only suitable for all kinds of Italian coffee, but also allow novices to maintain stable extraction at home.
As the atmosphere of specialty coffee now becomes more and more intense, the coffee beans we use when making Italian coffee have also begun to become more abundant. People no longer stick to blending, and have begun to try to use single-origin coffee beans to make SOE. Because of this, many friends like to ask Front Street to recommend "coffee beans that can be used to make SOE" when buying beans.
But to be fair, all coffee made from single-origin beans is SOE. Because SOE abbreviates "Single Origin Espresso", we can understand it as espresso made from coffee beans from a single origin.
The so-called single-origin coffee beans refer to coffee beans produced in a certain country/region/processing plant/cooperative/manor/farm, or collected in the same batch. They are all single-origin coffee because they are not mixed with coffee beans from other regions, which is what we often call "single-origin coffee."
To put it simply, as long as the coffee beans have the hard indicator of "single origin", then the espresso produced from it can be called "SOE". For example, if you use Yirgacheffe ration beans from Front Street that cost 25 yuan a pack to make a cup of espresso, then it can be called "Yirgacheffe SOE"; if you use Panama Gesha from Front Street that costs 88 yuan to make an American style, it will be Panamanian Geisha SOE American... and so on.
Although that is said, we still have certain requirements when choosing coffee beans for making SOE. After all, when we choose to use single-origin coffee beans to make espresso, the purpose is to differentiate it from the common medium-dark espresso coffee, while at the same time giving the coffee a distinctive flavor of the place of origin. Therefore, the single-origin beans we use to make SOE generally have these two requirements: "not so darkly roasted" and "prominent flavor".
There are many coffee beans that meet these two conditions. For example, in the bean list of Front Street, nearly 95% of the coffee beans meet the standards. In order to prevent everyone from falling into the difficulty of choosing, Front Street will share with you which single-origin beans are commonly used in coffee shops when making SOE, or which single-origin beans are more suitable for making Italian coffee.
1. Clean and fresh SOE
If you want to drink a cup of Italian coffee with a cleaner taste and a fresher overall flavor, then you can choose medium-light roasted washed coffee beans from Africa, Central and South America. For example, the Front Street Poquette Gesha and Front Street Fruit Ding Ding are on the Front Street Bean List.
Because these coffee beans usually have softer fruit acid, and then have a more elegant floral aroma and a fresh tea feeling, the overall texture of espresso, Americano and other Italian black coffee made with them is clean and fresh, and the taste is soft, and it will taste more like a cup of flower and fruit tea.
But the disadvantage is that the overall taste is relatively fresh and can easily be masked by milk. Therefore, it is best to reduce the amount of milk when making latte and other coffees to prevent the characteristics of the coffee from being highlighted.
2. Fruity SOE
If you want to drink a cup of coffee with sweet and sour taste and strong fruit flavor, then you can choose medium-light roasted coffee beans processed by sun-drying and honey, such as Front Street Alo, Front Street Oiran, Front Street sun-dried red cherry, or Front Street blackberry processed with black honey, etc.
This type of coffee beans develops a richer fruit flavor because more substances are involved in fermentation during processing. At the same time, due to sufficient caramelization reaction during the roasting process, they will have a higher sweetness. The concentrated, American and other Italian black coffee made with them tastes mainly sweet and sour, with a round and full taste, and you can clearly taste the sour aroma of fruits such as citrus and berries.
When making Italian milk coffee such as latte, because the taste is more intense, we don't need to make much adjustment in the ratio. We can taste the aroma of some fruits in the latte made with them, and the taste is relatively mellow (compared to washed light roasted beans), which is quite good.
3. SOE with outstanding flavor
If you want to drink a very prominent and highly directional flavor from your espresso, then you can choose some medium-light roasted anaerobically processed coffee beans for production. For example, in the Front Street bean list, there are Front Street Divide Manor·Hipaw, Big Belly Button, Front Street Costa Rica·Strawberry Candy, Front Street Alida Manor·Anaerobic Kaduai, etc.
Anaerobically treated coffee beans have a deeper degree of fermentation, so the beans develop a very rich coffee flavor. These are also the most commonly used single-origin beans in many specialty coffee shops to make SOE. Because the espresso, American and other Italian black coffee made with them will have a variety of obvious and outstanding aromas. Take the dividing line of Front Street Doudan, Xi Zha, for example. The American style made with it will have a strong fruity flavor of grape, passion fruit, and apricot. It tastes sour and sweet, has a full mouthfeel, and is super delicious.
The same is true for the latte coffee made with them. Let's take Xija as an example. The latte made with Xija will have obvious sweet aroma of grapes and apricots, with some caramel and chocolate milk flavors, which is very good.
Of course, heavily fermented coffee beans also have disadvantages, but this disadvantage varies from person to person, that is, they will have a heavier fermentation. People who like it like it very much, and people who don't like it dislike it very much. So if you can accept the fermented taste similar to wine, then using anaerobically processed coffee to make SOE is still a good choice. But if you can't accept it, Front Street will recommend choosing sun-dried coffee beans.
It is worth mentioning that since these medium-light roasted coffee beans will have a sour taste, and the sourness is less compatible with the taste of milk, so if you do not want to make a cup of milk coffee with an abrupt taste, then it is best to extract more when using these medium-light roasted coffee beans to extract more bitterness of the coffee, so that the acidity can be balanced, so that the milk coffee produced will not have an abrupt taste.
The specific method has been shared by Front Street in previous articles, so I won’t go into details here. So the above is all the content shared by Front Street this time. Friends who are interested can try it at home~
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
