I believe that many of my friends are like Front Street when they first get started. They don’t know how to choose coffee beans, so when buying beans, they often ask the store clerk for coffee bean recommendations based on the coffee equipment they purchased. For example, recently, friends who have bought a Moka pot often ask customer service at the Front Street Taobao store: "Do you have any recommendations for Moka pot coffee beans?"
To be honest, no matter what equipment you use, it is the same. How to choose coffee beans depends on what kind of coffee you want. What do you want to make is a cup of milky coffee? Or black coffee with nothing added. Depending on the purpose, the emphasis will be different, and the degree of adaptation of the coffee beans will naturally change accordingly.
It doesn't matter! Today Front Street will share with you what kind of coffee beans we should choose to make Moka pot coffee in the face of different needs. Then what kind of grinding and amount of powder should be used to brew a delicious Moka pot coffee.
When making milk coffee...
If the coffee you want to make with a moka pot is milk coffee, then it is best to choose coffee beans that are roasted slightly darker. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the taste of coffee can be stronger.
When the coffee beans are roasted darker, the taste of the coffee will become richer due to a more complete caramelization reaction. At the same time, because of the deeper roasting, the acidity of the coffee has been eliminated and covered up. After making milk coffee, there will be no sudden acid in the coffee, and it can compete well with the taste of milk. The burnt aroma of coffee will not be easily masked by the taste of milk.
Secondly, there will be richer fat! Although the richness of the oil does not mean anything and is not related to the taste and quality of the coffee, many friends just want their coffee to have a layer of golden oil. In this case, darker roasted coffee beans would be a good choice. Because when the coffee beans are roasted darker, the carbon dioxide content in the body will be higher, and the extracted coffee oil will be richer.
If the coffee you want is as described on the front street, with a strong burnt aroma, no acid, and rich oil, and can be used to make milk coffee, then medium-dark roasted coffee beans are very suitable.
Front Street recommends that you choose directly from the Italian blending category. Because most of the beans in Italian blends have these characteristics (after all, they are blended for Italian style), and the price/performance ratio is very high. The price per pound (454g) ranges from 50 to 80, which is more suitable than medium-dark roasted single-origin beans. For beginners learning coffee, the entry-level Front Street Classic Blend, Front Street Commercial Blend, Front Street Boutique Blend and Front Street Black Cocoa Basic Blend are the first choices.
When making black coffee...
If the coffee you want to make with a Moka pot is pure coffee/black coffee without adding anything, then the choice of coffee beans becomes diverse. For example, if you want mellow and fragrant coffee, you can choose the Italian blend series mentioned above in Front Street, or you can choose high-grade Pour over(V60) single-origin coffee beans such as Front Street Queen's Manor and Indonesia Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling.
And if you want to drink a cup of coffee with fragrant floral and fruity aroma, sweet and sour taste, and light texture, then medium-light roasted coffee beans will be more suitable. Lightly roasted coffee will retain more floral and fruity aromas, and these aromas will not be overshadowed by too much burnt aroma.
Coffee beans with different processing from different production areas will have different flavor expressions. For example, the Front Street Sun-Dried Oiran in the Front Street Bean List has a flavor dominated by tropical fruits. The Moka pot coffee made with it will have the sweet and sour expression of citrus, berries, and apricots; or the Front Street Bean The front street Kenyan cherry tomatoes on the list, although the coffee made with it will be more sour, the acid is bright and easy to drink, with the unique sour aroma of ebony plums and cherry tomatoes; there are also the frequently mentioned Front Street Xiju, Front Street strawberry candy, etc. which are all very good choices~
What kind of grinding and powder quantity should be used to make Moka pot coffee?
When making Moka pot coffee, there is no need to pay too much attention to the amount of powder. We can directly fill the powder bowl or use the officially recommended amount of powder to make it. The grind size needs to be a little more particular, especially if you want to make milk-based coffee.
In the article "How to make a delicious "latte" coffee with Moka pot coffee", Front Street mentioned that if you want to use Moka pot coffee to make a latte, then the concentration of the Moka pot coffee must be relatively high and not have too much water, otherwise the milk coffee will taste watery and weak.
In order to make such a high-concentration coffee, we need to use the least amount of water to extract the most coffee substances. The amount of water used in Front Street is generally 4 times the amount of powder. For example, if the amount of powder in the single-serve Moka pot you use is 20g, then the water added to the lower pot will be about 80ml. By limiting the hot water in the lower pot, we can effectively increase the concentration of the coffee.
In terms of grinding, we need to use the same grind size as for espresso, which is a very fine grind that can grind the coffee powder into a flour-like form. Because if you want a very small amount of water to extract a large amount of flavor substances in a short period of time, you need to finer the grinding degree of the coffee powder to give the powder cake a higher resistance. This can effectively reduce the speed of hot water passing through the coffee powder, thereby extracting richer substances.
In the blue-printed article above, Front Street has more detailed practices to share. Friends who are interested can click to view it. Front Street will not go into details here.
If you are making pure black coffee, the production requirements will be relatively simple. Because we don’t need to consider the concentration of black coffee, we can either make a cup of high-concentration Moka pot coffee and dilute it with water as above, or we can use more water (1:6 powder-to-water ratio) and coarser grinding to directly brew a pot of coffee with less concentration. After tasting it, if you feel that the concentration is not appropriate, just add a small amount of water to dilute it ~
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
