I have a semi-automatic espresso machine at home, and the most common thing I struggle with is what beans to buy. In fact, the idea will be much clearer if you choose three categories according to daily drinking scenarios: daily milk coffee, black coffee American style, and advanced exploration, each with its corresponding bean direction.
The most common scenario is daily milk coffee. Most home users buy an espresso machine just to make a latte or cappuccino in the morning. This type of scene requires beans that are mellow, smooth, and oily. They are sweet enough when mixed with milk. The classic blend of the traditional mamba formula is very suitable. It is mellow and moist, and has outstanding oil performance. Although the pressure of the home machine is not as good as that of the commercial machine, it can still extract dense and delicate oil, which can be stably held in making latte and dirty. If you want to control the budget, the black cocoa blend is a cost-effective choice. It is 100% Arabica, has sufficient oil and mellow taste, and the price is affordable, so you won’t feel bad if you use it as daily rations.
The second type of scene is black coffee American style. People who like to drink American style pay more attention to the cleanliness and balance of beans. The exquisite blend uses Brazilian Cerato and Colombian Whelan. The flavor is classic, sweetness and thickness are balanced. When made in American style, it has a solid taste without any foreign smell. It is just the familiar Italian coffee taste in my memory. If you want to drink American style with the characteristics of the place of origin, you can also use single-origin beans. Brazilian Queen's Manor nut cocoa has a clear flavor and makes American style smooth and long-lasting.
The third type of scenario is advanced exploration. After getting comfortable with home computers, many people began to try SOE single-product beans. Golden Mandheling is used as SOE, and the deep-roasted mellowness is fully expressed in the concentrate, with rich herbal and dark chocolate flavors; Colombian Hija is a fruity SOE. Double anaerobic sun exposure brings out the juice of passion fruit and blueberry, which is very recognizable when used in concentrates or fruit coffees. The fun of SOE is that each bean brings a different flavor experience, and home machines can also play tricks.
When choosing beans, you should also pay attention to the combination of roasting degree and grinding degree. For home machines, it is generally recommended to use medium-dark roasted beans, which have a high error tolerance; adjust the grinding degree to the Italian scale according to the machine instructions, and then fine-tune it according to the flow rate. The three types of scenes correspond to the three types of beans. You can choose and buy according to your needs. The home Italian machine can cover your complete needs from daily rations to flavor exploration.
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
