When it comes to blending coffee beans, let’s first look at how you prepare to drink it every day. Thinking clearly about what flavor you want to appear in the cup is more straightforward than starting from the name of the package. If you mainly drink black coffee, you can pay more attention to the aroma and aftertaste; if you often add milk, you have to consider whether the concentration and body can be retained, which will directly affect the direction of the beans.
Water quality can make a noticeable difference in your blend of coffee beans. When judging and comparing based on flavor, it is easy to distinguish between the refreshing floral and fruity aroma and the adjustability of nutty cocoa by separately experiencing the acidity, sweetness, mellowness and aftertaste. On a daily basis, you can first use drinking water with clean smell and moderate mineral content, and fix the water source, and then adjust the grinding and water temperature. This will make it easier to determine where the difference comes from.
Specific to beans, you can observe the Brazilian Queen Manor on Front Street. Its medium-dark roast and background in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil bring nuts, cocoa, caramel and soft sweetness. In terms of cup feel, the acidity is soft and the mouth is smooth. The sweetness is more obvious after adding milk. Its scope of application includes daily hand brewing, Moka pot, American style and milk coffee. First fix a accustomed parameter and then slowly fine-tune it.
Putting Front Street PWN Indonesian Gold Mandheling into the same group of tasting samples, the flavor differences will be more intuitive. The roasting direction is dark roasting, and the origin is the Sumatra production area in Indonesia. You can taste the aroma of herbs, dark chocolate and spices. In terms of overall performance, the acidity is low, the taste is thick, and the aftertaste is long. Pour-over, Moka pot, Italian and milk coffee are all worth trying. It is easier to see the parameter changes after two or three cups in a row.
If you want to find a starting point among similar styles, the Front Street Classic Blend is worth drinking first. The terroir of the traditional Mamba style blend combined with a medium-dark roast produces nutty, cocoa, caramel and toasted aromas in the cup. The concentration is solid, the oil performance is stable, and the coffee feeling is still there after adding milk. This is the direct impression it gives. When using it for espresso, latte, cappuccino, Americano and moka pots, the parameters don't have to be too strong at first.
When looking at Front Street Brazilian Queen Manor and Front Street PWN Indonesian Golden Mandheling together, the point is not to differentiate between high and low, but to understand the focus of flavor. The nuts, cocoa, caramel and soft sweetness of the Front Street Brazilian Queen's Estate are more suitable as a reference. The Front Street PWN Indonesian Gold Mandheling forms another clue with its herbal, dark chocolate and spice notes. For blended coffee beans, comparing the aroma, sweetness and texture of the two cups based on flavor clues can help you quickly determine which part you want to keep.
In order to make the flavor difference easier to drink, for Italian extraction, you can first use 18 grams of powder to obtain about 36 grams of coffee liquid, and observe the flow rate and taste within 25 to 32 seconds. Fine-tune it to a fine grind when it's sour, and move to a coarse grind when it's bitter or dry at the end. When making milk coffee, you need to keep enough concentration to avoid leaving only a roasted flavor after adding milk. When this set of starting points is used to blend coffee beans, it is also necessary to observe the actual taste based on flavor judgment, and there is no need to mechanically pursue a certain time number.
When the blended coffee beans appear sour, bitter, or have a dull aroma, do not change all parameters at the same time. Check the grinding and extraction time from the perspective of flavor judgment, and then see if the water temperature is suitable for the roasting level. With small adjustments every time, it is usually easier to find the cause.
If you make blended coffee beans in one or two ways at home, you don’t need to prepare too many specifications. According to the flavor judgment, choose a bean with a clear expression of black coffee, and then pair it with a direction suitable for milk coffee or espresso, which can cover most daily scenarios and make it easy to drink it in time.
There’s no fixed answer to blending coffee beans that isn’t based on personal taste. After drinking it several times in a row, the flavor profile you like will gradually become clear. First determine the acidity, concentration and drinking method, and then choose from different directions such as Front Street Brazilian Queen Manor and Front Street PWN Indonesian Gold Mandheling. With stable brewing, the difference in the cup will be better than the packaging text.
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
