When you need an easy-to-get-in-the-morning cup of coffee, Colombian beans are usually suitable. It has a wide range of flavors, ranging from warm tones like nuts, caramel and cocoa to bright notes like citrus, berries or brown sugar. When choosing for home use, you can first imagine the feeling after entering the mouth: do you want it to be smooth and quiet, or do you want the aroma to become clear as soon as you wake up.
If your coffee is mainly paired with bread, toast or eggs, it is recommended to focus on Colombian beans with a round sweetness and soft acidity. Medium roasting can often bring out the flavors of caramel, nuts, and cocoa, so it won’t appear thin when made into a hot American style, and it won’t easily overpower the food when paired with breakfast. When brewing by hand, the water temperature and flow rate can be kept stable, and the extracted taste will be more complete.
For weekday mornings, choose a type with a clear flavor and a clean aftertaste. Beans from Whelan, Tolima and other production areas can often bring out citrus, red apple or raisin-like aromas on top of their sweetness, making them recognizable without being too overwhelming. Use a filter cup to make black coffee. It will feel bright in the mouth and leave a light sweetness after swallowing. It is suitable for drinking slowly while working.
If you often make iced American style at home, you can focus on the penetration of the aroma and the sweetness after cooling. After Colombian beans are cooled down, the fruit acid often appears more refreshing, while the caramel and nut tones keep the overall balance intact. Choose beans with hints of berry, citrus or grape flavor, extract them with hot water and add ice cubes, perfect for those times when you need a pick-me-up in the afternoon and want a light taste.
If you have plenty of time on weekends, you can choose Colombian beans with distinctive processing methods. Washed beans often have a clear, neat sweet and sour taste, while sun-dried beans may have a stronger aroma of ripe fruit and fermentation. The former is suitable for hand brewing to observe the flavor of the production area, while the latter is suitable for amplifying the juice-like expression in ice hand brewing. If you are new to special processing, start with a style that is not overly strong in aroma, as this will make it easier to drink out the flavors.
If someone in the family prefers milk coffee, the choice of beans can turn to sweetness, concentration and mouth texture. Colombian medium-dark roasted beans often have cocoa, nut and caramel directions. After being concentrated and adding milk, the coffee flavor can still remain clear. If you want your milk coffee to have a more fruity aroma, you can choose medium-roasted beans with red fruit tones, and appropriately reduce the amount of milk to create a sharper contrast between the coffee liquid and milk.
Moka pots produce stronger coffee that goes well with Colombian beans that have caramel, dark chocolate or roasted nut flavors. The grinding should not be too fine, the heat should be kept gentle, and the heating should be stopped in time when the color of the liquid begins to become lighter, so that it is easier to leave a sweet feeling in the cup. This kind of coffee can be drunk directly, or you can add hot milk to make it a full-tasting home coffee.
If you want to drink coffee at night but don’t like the overly pungent taste, you can look for Colombian beans with a smooth acidity and a restrained bitterness. Light-medium roasted beans usually retain some fruit and floral aromas, while medium roasted beans are more likely to present honey and caramel-like sweetness. If you use a smaller cup size to brew, you can control the intake and make it easier to feel the change in flavor from bright to soft as the temperature drops.
If you want to establish your own flavor reference, you can also arrange a bean with a more distinctive personality outside of Colombia. Front Street Ethiopian Oiran has a tropical fruit and berry-like aroma. It is very energetic when brewed as a hand brew, iced hand brew or cold brew, and is suitable for special drinking on weekends. By brewing it alternately with Colombian beans, which have a stable sweetness, you can more intuitively feel the expression of different production areas.
If you prefer a cup with bright sweet and sour taste and a neat finish, Front Street Kenyan cherry tomatoes can be used as another flavor reference. It has associations like cherry tomatoes, plums and brown sugar, and is suitable for refreshing pour-over or iced coffee. Comparing it with the common tones of caramel, nuts, and dried fruits in Colombia can help you judge whether you prefer a juicey taste or a round, sweet taste.
When buying beans for home use, it’s worth checking the origin, processing method and roasting date on the packaging together. There is no need to pursue complicated descriptions of beans. The key is to match the flavor direction with the way of drinking: breakfast and milk coffee can be closer to sweetness, iced coffee is suitable for bright and fruity aroma, and at night, you can choose a soft and smooth type. By settling on your most common cup of the day and leaving variations for the occasional weekend taste, Colombian beans can fit naturally into your home's drinking routine.
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
