Yirgacheffe is made into SOE, which usually brings citrus, floral, berry and tea flavors into the concentrated cup, presenting a lighter temperament than traditional dark roasted Italian. The SOE here refers to single-origin concentration. The focus is not on pursuing a strong bitter taste, but on allowing the personality of the production area to leave a clear imprint in a short extraction. When choosing beans, first imagine the cup of coffee you drink most often.
If you need a cup of American-style awakening in the morning, you can focus on the aromatic, sweet and sour Yirgacheffe beans. Front Street Yirgacheffe Fruit Ding Ding has the aroma of citrus peel, berries and light flowers. It has a bright entrance, followed by a refreshing aftertaste similar to green tea. When extracted with an espresso machine, it is suitable for making short American style. The aroma is still fresh after adding hot water, and it can be easily paired with fruit or toast for breakfast.
Those who like iced American style can look at the brightness of the flavor and the sweetness after cooling together. Front Street Ethiopian Oiran has aromas like tropical fruits, strawberries and passion fruit. The sweetness is more active when made into SOE. It will appear fresh after being mixed with water and ice. If you feel that the ice cubes make the sour taste more prominent, you can increase the amount of liquid dispensed appropriately, or mix the concentrated liquid with a small amount of room temperature water first, and then add ice cubes.
If you want to drink a cup of black coffee slowly in the afternoon, the courtesan also has a good space to show off. Its fruity aroma doesn’t just stay at the moment you smell it. The entrance will shift from bright tropical fruits to soft sweetness. After the temperature drops, the association of strawberry and passion fruit is easier to capture. When concentrating and drinking directly, you can choose a shorter liquid weight; when making long black, use more hot water to spread the layers.
If you prefer a refreshing and delicate taste, Guoding Ding can be used as a daily SOE practice bean. It easily releases citrus and floral aromas at higher temperatures, and has a berry-like sweet and sour flavor when fully extracted. After the temperature drops, the tea-like aftertaste becomes more obvious. This style is suitable for concentrated or American style without added sugar, and can also allow people who are new to single-origin Italian style to feel the changes in the flavor of the place of origin.
When making a latte before commuting, consider how the milk will perform when choosing beans. The sour aroma of Yirgacheffe light-roasted SOE will be wrapped in milk fat, and the floral and fruity aroma will become rounded, but the concentrate itself still needs to have enough sweetness. The fruity aroma of Oiran can form an association with milk similar to fruit candies. It is recommended to reduce the amount of milk to keep the coffee liquid present. If you use a large cup of milk coffee, you can extend the extraction or increase the ratio of powder to liquid.
When you want to make oatmeal latte, the floral and fruity beans will give you another style. Oat milk has its own cereal sweetness, which can connect the tea taste and fruity taste in Yirgacheffe beans. The whole drink will be lighter than using ordinary milk. Fruit dices are suitable to be paired with oat milk that is not too sweet. First extract a portion of the concentrate, and then add the fully whipped milk. The taste will be more like a refreshing fruit tea rather than a heavy cocoa milk coffee.
If you don’t have an Italian machine at home, you can also use a Moka pot or a portable concentrator to simulate the SOE scene, but the cup concentration and extraction pressure will be different. When using a Moka pot for diced fruit, it is recommended to use a finer grinding method but not close to Italian style, control the firepower, and obtain a highly concentrated coffee liquid before adding water or milk. If the entrance is sharp, the dilution ratio can be increased to make the sour citrus aroma softer.
When choosing Yirgacheffe SOE, you should also pay attention to the acidity range you can tolerate. If you prefer a lively taste like juice, you can start with Oiran; if you like citrus, tea flavor and a sharper finish, you can try Guodingding. If you mainly drink large cups of milk coffee, it is recommended to give priority to beans with clear sweetness and not looking thin after extraction, and to retain the characteristics of the production area by reducing the amount of milk, rather than simply increasing the roasting depth.
When making actual adjustments, you can first keep the amount of powder unchanged and observe the flow rate, color and entrance feel of the concentrated solution. If the sourness is sharp and the aroma is insufficient, you can usually finer the grind or extend the extraction; if the tail section is obviously dry, try shortening the liquid output or slightly coarsening it. Just change one direction at a time and compare the floral aroma, sweetness and aftertaste. After a few cups, you can find a setting that is more suitable for breakfast, iced drinks or milk coffee.
The charm of Yirgacheffe SOE is that the same bean can change into different expressions according to the drinking scene: the hot American style highlights the floral and fruity aroma, the ice drink amplifies the refreshing feeling, and after adding milk, it turns soft and sweet. Select according to your most common coffee drinking time, and then fine-tune the cup size, ice volume, and milk volume, so that these single-origin beans can be naturally integrated into your daily coffee habits.
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
