"Bring me a cup of latte"
"Is this the medium cup?"
"Aren't you three cups, big, medium and small? I want the medium cup."
"I'm sorry, sir, that is a large cup, this is a medium cup, medium cup, large cup, extra large cup"
"Don't be like this... Teacher Luo, don't be like this..."
I believe that after reading this conversation, many people will immediately have a picture of "slapping themselves in the face" in their minds, because at this moment the person ordering has been "driven crazy" by the barista.
Front Street discovered that nowadays, in order to meet the rigid needs of office workers, almost every chain brand has different specifications for everyone to choose from. Let’s not talk about the difference in names. We can easily tell who has more and who has less based on the shape of the cup. The question is, when a small volume of coffee is upgraded to a larger cup, will coffee liquid be added or just water?
The capacity of a standard American cup of ice
Since the beans used in each coffee shop, extraction scheme, cup type, and cost more or less determine the taste and concentration of the Americano, a cup of standard iced Americano can range from 200ml to 400ml, and the corresponding parameters may change accordingly.
Take Front Street’s past production experience as an example. To make iced American style, a 350ml coffee cup is used with its own freshly roasted Italian bean series, which are Front Street black cocoa basic blend (cream; chocolate) and Front Street commercial blend (oil). Fat; caramel), Front Street Classic Blend (Toasted Toast; Chestnut), Front Street Boutique Blend (Sauteed Nuts; Butter). This time, we use the strong-flavored Front Street Classic Blend. The extracted espresso has the smell of baked bread, with a thick taste and a smooth and sweet aftertaste.
First add 150g of ice cubes into the cup, pour room temperature water until it is 8 to 9 minutes full, about 150g; then use 18g of coffee powder to extract a double espresso of 36g, and control the time to 25 to 35 seconds (no punctures or splashes during the entire process to ensure even coffee extraction), and then pour the espresso on the ice. This method is based on the standard cup recipe of Front Street's classic blend of Italian coffee beans. It can make the iced Americano full of roasted aroma, not bitter in the mouth but sweet aftertaste, and the concentration is moderate, even if you drink the whole cup, you will not feel burdened.
Standard cup upgrade, what is added?
Coffee is one of the commodities with the largest trade volume in the world. The capacity is generally calculated in the "ounce system". The most common ones are 12oz≈355ml, 16oz≈473ml, and 20oz≈592ml. For each liter of specification, the cup capacity will increase by 4oz, which is about 120ml of space. This means that "upgrading" is only convincing if the larger cup is filled until it is almost full.
A glass of iced Americano is composed of three ingredients: espresso, ice cubes, and water. According to the normal thinking, if you want to maintain the original taste and concentration of the iced American style, as well as the dark brown appearance, you need to increase the cup size by increasing the proportion of coffee and water.
How to increase the cup size of coffee?
Combined with the parameters for making an iced Americano using the classic blend of Front Street, it is known that the double espresso is 36g. When the coffee is upgraded from the standard cup of 12oz to 16oz, we can add about 118ml of iced coffee. At this time, Front Street will perform a second round of extraction with 18g of coffee powder after making a double espresso, and then add only half of the coffee liquid, so that the American style contains a total of 3 shots, and finally use a mixture of half ice and half water to make up the remaining space.
The same operation can be done for the 20oz extra-large cup of iced Americano, because the capacity has been increased by about 240ml to the original standard. To ensure a full cup, Front Street will extract 36g of double concentrate with the same amount of coffee powder (18g) and pour it in until the cup is full.
The extra-large cup of iced Americano produced in this way will have a stronger taste at first, but as the ice cubes melt, the taste will become refreshing and soft, and the caramel nut aroma will slowly be released. However, because the cup is too large, the coffee will often have become room temperature by the end of the drink.
It is worth noting that some ice American-style cups require extra charge, while others do not charge a fee. Many people will think: Since the price is the same, wouldn’t it be more affordable to order a larger cup?
In fact, this is not the case. This type of coffee brand is just to provide consumers with one more specification to make the cup look bigger (more cost-effective). When making it, it is only filled with ice water or drinking water, but the coffee liquid is not moved. Such a formula will not only make the ice American style lighter in color, but also tend to taste bland and tasteless.
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
