When we drink too much coffee of a certain flavor, we always want to try another flavor. For example, some friends who play with Moka pots usually buy dark roasted coffee beans that are full of caramel aroma to make Moka pot coffee, because this can extract rich coffee oil, and has a higher body and caramel aroma. Novices who are trying out a moka pot for the first time are best to buy the popular Front Street Classic Blend. This is an ancient Italian bean specially tailored for espresso. It can taste the flavors of butter, roasted chestnuts, macadamia nuts, and caramel. When made into a latte, it will have the characteristics of milk chocolate.
However, because there are often overturned posts on the Internet about moka pot coffee made from light roasted beans, many friends have little confidence in making moka pot coffee using light roasted beans. Thanks to this, Front Street often receives inquiries like: "Are light roasted beans not suitable for making Moka pot coffee?"
Obviously not! Lightly roasted beans are also suitable for making Moka pot coffee, but compared to dark roasted beans, it is more difficult to use light roasted beans to extract a good cup of Moka pot coffee. This is related to a variety of factors.
So today Front Street will list and analyze the common overturning incidents and causes of Moka pot coffee extracted from light roasted beans, and then share with you how we can use light roasted beans to make a delicious cup of Moka pot coffee!
1. Problems with taste
One of the most common pitfalls when making moka pot coffee with lightly roasted beans is the taste! Under normal circumstances, the coffee we make from lightly roasted beans should be sweet and sour, with a fresh and prominent flavor. However, the Moka pot coffee made by many friends using lightly roasted beans can only be described as "sour and exciting". It has almost no flavor and is overall very difficult to swallow. This situation is mainly caused by two reasons. The first one is: insufficient extraction.
Because of insufficient extraction, the sweet and bitter substances in the coffee are not dissolved. Without the balance of sweetness and bitterness, the sourness of coffee becomes dominant and becomes sharp and irritating. And the flavor cannot be fully displayed because it is not extracted enough. Not only that, usually when this smell appears, the dispensing process of Moka pot coffee will also be accompanied by sputtering, double ponytails and other phenomena.
But situations like this can be easily solved. We only need to finer the grinding degree of the coffee powder, increase the amount of coffee powder used, or reduce the firepower during liquid dispensing and extend the extraction time, so as to improve the efficiency of extraction and increase the amount of dissolved substances. Then the taste of the coffee will be balanced and have outstanding flavor expression!
The reason why many friends are unable to extract delicious Moka pot coffee with light roasted beans is mainly because the extraction parameters of dark roasted beans are applied to the extraction of light roasted beans, such as the same amount of powder and the same grinding degree.
But in fact, the extraction parameters of dark roasted beans and light roasted beans are not universal. The reason is very simple. Dark roasted beans have a larger expansion coefficient and lower density, so their flavor substances can be dissolved more easily.
On the contrary, light roasted beans are just the opposite. Because the roasting is not that deep and the expansion coefficient is not that large, their density will be relatively higher (some beans themselves are very dense). Then high density will cause the dissolution of flavor substances to require a higher extraction rate. If we do not adjust the extraction parameters, the powder cake will not have enough resistance. During the extraction process, this will make the liquid discharge speed faster and the extraction time shorter, and the coffee will be under-extracted.
Therefore, when using light roasted beans to make Moka pot coffee, we can adjust the grinding degree appropriately and increase the amount of powder. For example, when Front Street uses dark roasted coffee beans for extraction, the parameters used are 20g powder, Galileo Q18’s 1.0 scale, and flour-like grinding. When we use lightly roasted beans, we can use 21g powder or a finer grinding degree to make coffee.
In addition to extraction problems, the too sour taste of coffee is also related to the degree of roasting (very sour but not sour). When beans are roasted more lightly, the sour substances in the beans are retained more completely, resulting in a higher acidity. If you don’t want your coffee to be too acidic, then choose some coffee beans that are roasted to a medium roast. For example, beans roasted in a medium light degree and SOE roasted, and beans such as Front Street Esai Oiran (SOE roasted) and Front Street Strawberry Candy Gesha Blend in the Front Street Bean List belong to these types of coffee beans. The degree of roasting is not too light, and the extracted coffee is sweet and sour, with a rich floral and fruity aroma.
2. The problem of oil content
The second is the problem of grease! Many friends often report that the coffee liquid from lightly roasted beans cannot extract rich oil, and there is always only a thin layer or even none at all.
Regarding this point, it is actually not a rollover but a normal phenomenon! Because the amount of coffee oil mainly depends on the roasting degree and freshness of the beans. When the extraction is proper, the fresher the beans and the deeper the roasting, the richer the extracted oil will be, and vice versa.
If we want to extract rich oils, then as recommended by Front Street, we can choose slightly darker roasted coffee beans. But what we need to know is that oil is just foam filled with carbon dioxide, and its richness has little to do with the quality and taste of coffee.
And the oil extracted by the Moka pot cannot be regarded as the kind of oil we are familiar with in espresso, because the pressure is not as high as that of a coffee machine, so even if this layer of foam is rich when extracted, it will break and dissipate soon. And we almost never use Moka pot coffee to make latte art, so this layer of "fat" does not have much value. Therefore, Front Street recommends that everyone focus on the taste of coffee.
3. The milk coffee produced is tasteless
Finally, there is the problem of milk coffee! Many friends buy a Moka pot because it can be used as a substitute for a coffee machine to extract a higher concentration of coffee, and then add milk to make a cup of fragrant and delicious milk coffee. But when the coffee beans are changed from dark roasting to light roasting, the milk coffee made with the same proportion will not be as fragrant and strong. It tastes more like milk, and the flavor and taste of coffee are not well displayed.
The reason why this happens is also due to the roasting degree problem. Since the roasting degree of the coffee beans is not that deep, it does not undergo much caramelization and Menard reaction during the roasting process, and does not have too many rich flavors such as caramel and chocolate that can compete with milk. Instead, it can reveal more floral and fruity notes.
If we want to use Moka pot coffee extracted from lightly roasted beans to make a cup of milk coffee with a balanced taste and rich taste, then the best way is to reduce the amount of milk and increase the ratio of coffee to milk.
Front Street once shared with you how to extract a rich Moka pot base that can be used to make milk coffee. Then in the article, Front Street used a ratio of 1:3.5 to make milk coffee, that is, 50ml of Moka pot coffee liquid and about 180ml of milk.
In the article, Front Street uses Moka pot coffee made from dark roasted coffee beans. If we use light roasted beans, then the ratio of coffee to milk needs to be increased to about 1:3. Take the Front Street Geisha Blend·Strawberry Candy from the Front Street Bean List as an example. Using the Moka pot coffee extracted from it with three times the amount of coffee liquid (50ml) and milk (150), the milk coffee made is very good. Not only does it have obvious flavors such as strawberry and berry, but its taste is also very consistent with the taste of milk. There is no sense of incompatibility. The taste is also silky and mellow, 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
