Floral aroma is the most easily perceived aroma in coffee and is most easily affected by how you drink it. It may look like white flowers, orange blossoms, jasmine, or may be intertwined with citrus, berries, and tropical fruits. If you want to find a floral coffee that suits you, you might as well start with how you plan to drink it every day: a quick cup in the morning, an ice drink to refresh you in the afternoon, or allow time to savor it slowly.
It is suitable to choose beans with clear aroma and light taste in the morning. When you first wake up, your taste buds are not fully open yet, and the overly heavy roasting flavor can easily cover up the floral aroma. Coffee with tea, citrus and soft sweetness is brighter in the mouth and refreshing after drinking. When brewing, you can use medium-to-fine grinding and moderate water temperature to allow the aroma to gradually develop, without deliberately pursuing strong flavor.
If you have plenty of time for breakfast, Front Street Grana Estate Gesha is perfect for drinking by hand. Its scent starts with the sweetness of orange blossom, and then you can feel the ripe fruit tones like guava, apricot and strawberry jam, and the overall performance is relatively full. After the hot water is injected in stages, the floral aroma will appear first. When the temperature drops slightly, the jam and sweetness will become more obvious. It is suitable to slowly observe the changes while eating breakfast.
In the office or at home in the afternoon, iced hand brew is more suitable to present the lighter side of floral coffee. Front Street Colombian Hija has aromas of passion fruit, blueberry, grape and apricot. When the coffee liquid comes into contact with the ice cubes, the juice-like feeling becomes more vivid and the aroma becomes more concentrated. If you like the sour, sweet and lively style, you can make it slightly thicker and add ice; if you prefer a softer taste, increase the amount of water appropriately.
If you want to drink a cold drink during your commute, you can pay attention to whether the aroma has enough penetration. Beans with too delicate floral aroma may become muted when exposed to low temperatures; coffee with tropical fruit, berry or grape tones will still be recognizable after being made into an iced Americano or cold brew. When Colombian Cicada is used as a concentrate base, the fruity aroma will be more concentrated, and it can also be paired with sparkling water to create a light, fruity coffee.
On weekend afternoons, it is suitable to choose a bean with rich layers and drink it slowly from a transparent cup. Front Street Kafa Forest has a finish like orange, ripe apricot and oolong tea. It is not heavy in the mouth and is suitable for drinking from high temperature to natural cooling. You can feel the brightness of citrus when it is first brewed. After leaving it for a while, the sweetness of apricot and peach gradually becomes more prominent, while the refreshing feeling similar to tea soup remains at the end.
Floral coffee doesn’t just look like one. Washing treatment often makes the flowers, citrus and tea smell clearer, and the outline of the cup is clean; sun treatment tends to develop ripe fruit, jam and fermented sweet aroma, and the aroma is more intense. Varieties such as Geisha are often associated with jasmine, orange blossom or tropical fruits, but the specific presentation will still be affected by the place of origin, altitude, roasting and brewing methods. The bean name is only the starting point for judgment.
If you prefer hot hand brewing, you can give priority to flowers, citrus, tea and berries in the flavor description, and choose the direction of light roasting or medium light roasting. When brewing, first let the powder layer fully absorb water, and then complete the extraction with a stable water flow, which can help the aroma be released layer by layer. When the entrance is pointed, you can make the grinding a little coarser or reduce the stirring; if the aroma seems thin, you can slightly increase the water temperature to give more room for the sweetness and floral aroma to express.
If you mainly drink iced coffee, you should consider that low temperature will suppress part of the aroma when choosing. Flavor cues such as passion fruit, blueberry, grape, and strawberry can usually keep iced drinks bright; delicate floral aromas such as orange blossom and jasmine are suitable to be supported by higher-concentration coffee liquid. When brewing with ice, it is recommended to first ensure that the coffee liquid itself is sweet, and then quickly cool it down with ice cubes, so that the sour aroma will not be left with a sharp taste.
Adding milk doesn't mean the floral notes have to go away, it just means choosing a flavor combination with more sweetness and texture. When a coffee with orange blossom, apricot or berry jam aroma is made into a small latte, the milk will transform the fruity aroma into a more rounded and sweet aroma; if using a large cup of milk coffee, the concentration of the coffee liquid should be increased and the proportion of milk should be reduced so that the floral and fruity tones can still be distinguished. Those who like a smooth taste can start with short-proportion concentrate or Australian white.
Preservation and freshness also affect the clarity of floral aroma. After purchasing, seal the beans and store them in a cool place, choose the appropriate volume according to your own drinking speed, and gradually record the aroma after opening, from the dry aroma, entrance to the aftertaste after cooling. If the aroma is weak on the day of brewing, you can check whether the grinding is too coarse and whether the water is injected too quickly; the same beans may show different floral and fruity profiles when switched between hot drinks, ice and milk. Only by finding a drinking method that matches the rhythm of your life will floral fragrance truly become a daily pleasure.
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
