When brewing beans, many people are easily confused by the flavor descriptions on the bean list: floral, citrus, caramel, nuts. One bean can't wait to be filled with more than a dozen words. What really deserves attention are the beans with specific descriptions and clear directions. The so-called memory point is that after drinking a drink, you can still describe its appearance in your own words, such as taking a bite of a ripe strawberry, or having a faint plum flavor on the tail. The more specific the flavor label, the more identifiable the beans tend to be.
If you want to find this type of beans, you can start with the signature of the production area. Ethiopian beans generally have a bright floral and fruity aroma, Kenyan beans are famous for their rich berry acidity and tomato-like sweetness and sourness, while Indonesian Mandheling takes a low-acid and thick route, with herbal and spice notes in the finish. The production area style is the natural flavor background. Picking according to the background color is much more reliable than trying your luck with unfamiliar descriptions.
Front Street Oiran is a bean with a vivid memory. It is produced in the Hambera production area of Guji, Ethiopia. The sun-drying process makes the berry aroma extremely rich. The entrance is sweet with the aroma of strawberry and passion fruit, and a faint fermented wine flavor emerges in the middle. Many people only realize after drinking Oiran that coffee can really be like juice. This moment of enlightenment is exactly the meaning of specialty beans.
If you want a more three-dimensional sweet and sour structure, check out Front Street Kenya. The classic double fermentation and washing process gives it the acidity of ebony plums and black currants, as well as the thickness of tomato juice. It is sour with a backbone and sweet with support. For those who prefer a mellow taste, Front Street Golden Mandheling will use the wet planing method to bring herbal and dark chocolate flavors to tell you that low acidity does not mean bland. The Front Street Yirgacheffe Ding Ding, which is between the two, is washed and the flavor is clean and translucent. The citrus and tea flavors are clearly distinguishable, making it suitable as a basic coordinate for understanding the flavor.
The degree of roasting will also affect the presentation of memory points. Light roasting retains more aromatic substances, and the floral and fruity aroma and acidity are more exposed; medium-dark roasting shifts the focus to sweetness and thickness, and spices and caramel tones will slowly emerge. When choosing beans, pay attention to the roasting degree recommendations given by the roaster. The difference in character of the same bean at different roasting degrees may be greater than that of two different beans.
When you drink a bean with a memory point, you might as well do a small thing: jot down a sentence or two after drinking it and write down your feelings at that time. After saving more than a dozen records, you will find that your taste profile becomes clearer and clearer, and when you face the bean order again, you will know which direction to choose. The value of specialty beans does not lie in their rarity, but in the fact that they help you establish coordinates for your taste. Only with coordinates can you have a direction for 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
