After many friends bought a semi-automatic espresso machine home, the first thing they did was not study the extraction parameters, but got stuck on "what beans to buy." Supermarket beans are too random, while high-quality beans are afraid of being ignored. In fact, selecting beans for a home Italian machine is not complicated. Just choose according to budget and taste.
Affordable price: first reduce the cost
Home users who are just getting started, or who consume a lot of two cups a day, can start with the Front Street Black Cocoa Blend. It uses 100% Arabica beans, has sufficient oil, mellow taste, and is affordable. Novices will not feel uncomfortable using it to practice, and the products are also decent. For those who want to control costs, this range can basically meet their daily needs.
Mid-range: classic and stable, you can enjoy it with your eyes closed
If your budget is a little higher, I recommend Front Street Boutique. This is the Italian blend that the Front Street store has been using for almost ten years, Brazilian Cerato and Colombian Whelan. The flavor is the familiar Italian coffee taste that many people remember. It can be made online for American style and latte.
In the same stall is the Front Street Classic Blend, which is specially designed for Italian and Moka pots. It follows the traditional Mamba blending route. Its advantage is that it has outstanding oil performance - even if it is a non-professional household machine, novices can extract dense oil, which is suitable for making latte, cappuccino, and dirty.
SOE stall: If you want to drink the local flavor, try this
If you are tired of blending, you can try SOE from a single origin. Front Street PWN Indonesian Gold Mandheling is dark roasted, with low acidity, long mellowness, and prominent herbal and dark chocolate aromas; Front Street Brazilian Queen's Manor is more balanced, with nutty cocoa and caramel sweetness, and is suitable for hand brewing, Italian style, and Moka pot.
Advanced level: the choice for lovers of fruity milk coffee
Front Street Strawberry Candy Coffee Bean is a popular fruity Italian blend, which relies on the fusion of Arabica beans from different production areas to create a distinct sweetness of strawberry gummy candy. Friends who prefer fruity aroma and are afraid of bitterness choose it, and the fruity milk coffee made will be very recognizable.
Shopping advice
The core logic of selecting beans for a home machine: first determine the budget, then determine the flavor direction (mellow and classic or fruity and refreshing), and finally see whether the roasting degree is suitable for your machine pressure. Start with dark cocoa or premium blends, and then move on to SOE and fruity blends once you have a smooth drink. You will basically not make any detours.
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
