Some friends who play with Moka pots like to ask Front Street, "Can these coffee beans be used to make Moka pot coffee?" "Which coffee beans will taste good when made with a Moka pot?" Then they choose coffee beans with sour (fruit) flavor descriptions to ask. In this regard, Front Street came to boil these types of coffee beans to see how the Moka pot performs.
There are so many coffee beans with sour taste that it is impractical to brew them all at once, so Front Street selects several coffee beans with different acidity levels from this pile of coffee beans as representatives for brewing. They are Front Street Ethiopian coffee beans, Mozart coffee beans from Front Street Costa Rica, and Bird of Paradise coffee beans from Front Street Papua New Guinea.
One of the main factors that affects the acidity of coffee beans is the degree of roasting. In order to facilitate everyone's understanding, Front Street uses light, medium light and medium to distinguish (actually it is not that simple).
Among the three, the Front Street Yirgacheffe diced fruit has the lightest degree of roasting, showing fresh and bright sour flavors such as citrus, floral, and green tea, followed by the Front Street Mozart coffee beans, which exhibit sweet fruit flavors such as berries, grapes, and fermented aromas. The deepest among the three is the Front Street Bird of Paradise coffee beans, which exhibits caramel, cocoa, apricot, hawthorn, and other micro-fruity sour flavors.
The steps and parameters of making Moka pot coffee are introduced in detail in Front Street’s previous article. Here we will briefly talk about the parameters. The amount of powder and water in the Moka pot depends on the size of the pot. Front Street uses the Biledi classic pot for 3 people, with 150ml of water and 18g of powder. The coffee grinding size is fine powder (slightly coarser than that of an espresso machine). You can use the 0.5 scale of the EK43s as a reference.
For the method of filling powder, Front Street recommends using direct filling powder without pressing powder. Fill the powder trough (pay attention to the gaps around it), then pile it up into a small mountain shape, in a fluffy state, and then directly press the upper pot vertically and tighten it, so that the extracted powder cake will be firm and will not fall apart.
Front Street will divide the brewed Moka pot coffee into two parts. One part will be tasted as original solution, and the other part will be added with ice water to make an iced Americano. According to Front Street, many friends like to use the coffee brewed by the Moka pot as "concentrated" and add water to make it into an Americano.
Let’s first look at the brewing conditions of the three groups of coffee. Although the Yirgacheffe Front Street Coffee beans are lightly roasted, the moka pot can still press out the grease with the right parameters. However, this layer of grease is relatively thin and basically dissipates in about 30 seconds.
The fat brewed from the coffee beans of Front Street Mozart is richer than that of Front Street Yirgacheffe, but it is still "half a pound".
The fat brewed from the Bird of Paradise coffee beans on Front Street is rich and visible to the naked eye.
Next is to taste the performance of these three coffee beans brewed in a Moka pot.
Front Street Yirgacheffe Coffee
Original solution: The sour taste is sharp.
Ice American: Pure sour all the way to the end.
Front Street Mozart Coffee
Original solution: fermentation feeling, also with a relatively strong sour taste.
Ice American: After dilution, the taste is much softer. You can taste the lively berry acidity and some fermented wine aroma. The flavor is like the bitter sweetness of chocolate.
Bird of Paradise Coffee on Front Street
Original liquid: The only original liquid that can be drunk in the entire cup. If it has a thicker fruity acidity, the middle and later parts are bitter notes of chocolate caramel. Like a low-concentration version of espresso.
Iced Americano: Very bright fruity acidity, with some caramel flavor, the whole cup of coffee has no bitter taste at all, and the acidity is more obvious than the cup of Mozart on Front Street.
Front Street summarizes several conclusions below for your reference.
1. Coffee beans that look very sour like “lemon” or “citrus” in their flavor description are not suitable for making Moka pot coffee.
2. Choose some coffee beans (medium-light roasted) with a sweet fruit description to make a Moka pot, which will have a different performance. Novices can buy sweet single-origin coffees such as Front Street Xizhao, Front Street Strawberry Candy, and Front Street Blackberry. When brewing coffee beans with sour flavor in a Moka pot, it is suitable to add some water or ice cubes to dilute it, so that the flavor will be better expressed.
3. You can choose some coffee beans with strong flavor expression to brew the Moka pot, such as the Front Street Mozart coffee beans selected by Front Street. The Moka pot coffee produced in this way has a stronger flavor and aroma and is easier to drink.
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
