Although floral aroma is not uncommon in coffee, it is undoubtedly one of the most attractive flavors. After all, many friends became obsessed with coffee because they tasted floral aroma in coffee.But brewing the floral aroma in coffee is not a simple matter, because friends often report to Front Street that they can't brew the floral aroma in coffee at home, and ask if there is any brewing method that can make the floral aroma more obvious.Of course! But in order to brew coffee with floral aroma, we must first meet a prerequisite--use coffee beans with floral aroma.Not all coffee has a floral aroma because not all coffee has the compounds that produce floral aromas. This has something to do with the variety, cultivation, and post-processing of coffee.There is a very good example in terms of varieties - Gesha（T2722）. We all know that the Gesha variety has a strong floral aroma. The reason is that the Gesha variety contains terpenes. Terpenes are the natural floral aroma in coffee and are components of various floral aromas.Coffee beans grown at high altitudes tend to have a more floral aroma. Because of the large temperature difference between day and night in high altitude areas, the low temperature at night will force the coffee fruits to slow down their metabolism and generate and accumulate more small molecular substances to withstand the extreme environment, including substances that can form floral aromas. Of course, this is also related to the local customs.Processing and roasting are also factors that affect the richness of the floral aroma of coffee. Front Street has shared it in detail in previous articles, so I won’t go into details here. All in all, if we want to brew the floral aroma in coffee, we need to choose a coffee bean with floral aroma for brewing. For example, Front Street Panama Poquet Geisha and Front Street Yirgacheffe Guitin in the Front Street Bean List all have obvious floral characteristics.How to get the floral aroma out of coffee?The speed at which the flavor molecules in coffee are dissolved by hot water will vary depending on the molecular weight and polarity. This is the research result of American biologist Dr. Lockhart and SCAA senior consultant Ringer.The smaller the mass and the more polar the flavor molecule is, the faster it will dissolve; the larger the mass and the lower the polarity of the flavor molecule, the slower it will be dissolved by hot water. Floral fragrance belongs to the former, and it will dissolve faster. At the same time, it is not an easy aroma to capture. When there are too many other substances in the coffee, the floral aroma will be easily obscured and people will not be able to drink it.Therefore, if you want the brewed coffee to have a distinct floral aroma, Front Street’s suggestion is to try not to use too extreme extraction methods. Otherwise, it is easy to cause most of the floral aroma to escape before tasting, or to be obscured by the taste and aroma of other substances.Although it sounds a bit complicated, the actual operation is still very simple ~ Sherry, the 2022 WBrC champion, developed a brewing method specifically for this, and the coffee brewed with it does have a very obvious floral aroma. Without further ado, Front Street will share with you how to operate this plan~This plan is a three-stage variable temperature brewing. The first stage(steamed), the water temperatures in the second and third sections are 80°C, 95°C, and 80°C respectively. The same as conventional brewing, the first stage is the steaming stage. The reason why 80°C water is used for steaming is to reduce the efficiency of exhaust and allow the floral flavor to be retained longer.Floral flavor molecules dissolve relatively quickly because they are highly polar. Therefore, if we use regular water temperature for steaming, a large amount of floral flavor molecules will be dissolved in the early stage of brewing due to sufficient exhaust, and then escape and be lost.(part). The 80°C hot water can reduce the exhaust gas and allow more carbon dioxide to be retained in the coffee powder, thereby reducing the efficiency of the initial extraction and delaying the dissolution stage of the floral aroma slightly.Since the coffee powder does not receive enough exhaust during the exhaust stage, we need to use a higher water temperature in the second stage of brewing to make up for the missing extraction efficiency. It is also the main extraction stage, where most of the coffee substances we need will be dissolved.The main purpose of the third stage of extraction is to dilute the concentration of the coffee. The dilution of the concentration allows the flavor to expand and we can taste the flavor of the coffee better.However, because we have dissolved the main substances in the coffee in the second stage, if we continue to use high-temperature water to brew, some bad substances will be easily brought out. Therefore, at this stage we need to use water temperature of 80°C for brewing to prevent the dissolution of negative flavors such as bitterness, astringency, and impurities.The general theory is like this~ Next, Front Street will give a practical demonstration on how to operate it! The coffee beans used in brewing Front Street this time are Front Street Yirgacheffe·Guo Ding in the bean list. The extraction parameters are as follows:Amount of powder used: 15gGrinding degree: 9.5 scale of Ek43, 80% screening rate of No. 20 mesh, fine sugar grindingPink to water ratio: 1:15Brewing water temperature: 80°C, 95°C, 80°CIt doesn’t matter if you don’t have two brewing kettles at home, because steaming does not require high-precision water control, so we only need to prepare an extra container that can be filled with water and fill it with 80°C hot water for steaming. Then after the second stage of water filling is completed, add a certain amount of cold water to the hand brewing kettle to reduce it to 80°C. In this way, even if there are not two brewing kettles, you can still perform variable temperature brewing.So first, we use 80°C hot water for steaming ~ the amount of water injected is twice the amount of coffee powder（30ml）, the steaming time is 30 seconds.After the steaming is completed, we switch to 95°C hot water for the second stage of water injection. The amount of water injected in this section is 130ml. The water flow is moderate in size and injected in a large circle.After the hot water injected in the second stage seeps out of the filter cup, we switch back to 80°C hot water for the third stage of brewing. The amount of water injected in this section is 65ml. Use a small flow of water to inject in a small circle around the center of the filter cup. After the injection is completed, we only need to wait for all the hot water in the filter cup to flow out, then we can remove the filter cup and end the extraction~As introduced by Front Street, the fruit diced brewed in this way does have a very prominent floral aroma. No matter when you smell it or after drinking the coffee, you can feel the obvious white floral aroma. In addition, other flavors such as lemon and berry are well represented. The taste is smooth and clean, and the ending is that of oolong tea, which is very good~
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
