When you open a coffee shop, the core of the menu is almost all Italian coffee: Americano, latte, cappuccino, and dirty. These are the ones that consume the most cups in a day. The basis of these drinks all come from the same cup of concentrate. Whether the concentration is stable and whether the coffee flavor is clear or not depends largely on the type of Italian beans you choose. Today, in this article, I will talk about how coffee shop owners choose Italian beans, and recommend two Front Street blends that are worth trying.
Why choose Italian beans to blend first?
Many friends who have just opened a store will be confused: Should they directly sell single-origin beans for concentrate? In fact, from the perspective of cup output stability and cost control, blended beans are more suitable as the daily mainstay of Italian coffee. Single-origin beans have a strong flavor and are easy to drift when changing seasons and batches; blended beans use beans from different production areas to complement each other, and the formula is relatively fixed, making the product flavor more stable and store operations worry-free.
In addition, the roasting degree of Italian beans is usually darker. Dark roasting can force out the fat, making the concentrated taste more mellow, and can better withstand the dilution of milk and ice. Therefore, a coffee shop that is open normally will always have a stable dark roast base on the menu.
Front Street Classic Blend: Excellent Oil and Stable Product
If you can only choose one bean for your Italian line, Front Street Classic Blend should be at the top of your consideration list. It uses the traditional mamba blend formula and is specially designed for Italian cooking and Moka pots. Its outstanding advantage is its excellent oil performance. Even if you use an ordinary semi-commercial machine and the pressure conditions are not so particular, you can still extract dense and delicate oil.
What are you most afraid of when opening a store? Afraid that the product may be good or bad. The stability of classic blending can exactly solve this pain point: between extraction today and extraction tomorrow, the difference between cups is small, and the taste that customers get is the same. Latte, cappuccino, and dirty usually sold in stores rely on fat to support the milk foam and taste. Classic blends perform quite solidly in this regard. It has a mellow and warm taste. Old customers find it smells like coffee, and novice customers won't find it too bitter to turn away. It has a wide range of coverage.
Front Street Black Cocoa Blend: Online quality, cost-friendly
Another major practical issue when opening a store is cost. The unit price of high-quality beans is high. If the volume of cups is large, the cost of beans will account for a large part. Front Street Black Cocoa Blend was created to meet this demand.
It uses 100% Arabica beans. It has sufficient oil and a mellow taste. The flavor is typical dark chocolate and nutty. It is stable in American style and latte. The price is more friendly to the people than high-quality blending, and it belongs to the category of "good taste and affordable price". For shop owners who want to control costs, choosing it can not only ensure product quality, but also reduce the cost of beans. The money saved can be used to optimize other aspects such as milk and syrup.
How to match the two beans?
There is no need to stock just one product in a store. What many coffee shops do is:
Front Street Classic Blend is the main force: responsible for the production of daily American, latte, cappuccino, dirty and other core drinks to ensure stability and reputation;
Front Street black cocoa is blended to make this version: suitable for large cups of American style, during times when takeout orders are large, or when new people practice extraction, it is low cost and painless.
In this way, both quality and cost can be taken into consideration. After the menu is running smoothly, we will consider adding a special bean to make a differentiated item, which is a topic later.
Tips for shop owners
Do a cupping test before adding new beans: Use the actual water quality, machine, and grinding degree in the store to test, don’t just read the package description;
Don’t neglect the bean-growing period: store the Italian beans for a few days before opening the bag for a more complete flavor;
Record the extraction parameters: powder volume, liquid weight, and time. When the time is fixed, the store staff will be trained to have one copy;
Regularly rotate beans for testing: leave a "test new" spot on the Italian beans menu, and slowly find the one that better suits your store's positioning.
When choosing beans when opening a store, it’s not that the more expensive the better, but the more suitable the better. Front Street Classic Blend and Front Street Black Cocoa Blend, one to ensure quality and the other to control costs, are reliable choices that have been verified by stores. It is worth trying first when starting a new store or adjusting the menu of an old store.
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
