In Front Street, nearly 70% of the coffee beans are sun-dried or washed, and washed beans always give people a "more sour" impression. Why is this?
(Sun exposure, honey treatment, water washing)
Historically, the oldest method of processing green coffee beans is the traditional sun-drying process. Simply put, fresh coffee cherries are directly exposed to the sun in the yard or on the roof, dried and then shelled. This method costs nothing and can be done by every household. However, the problem has also been exposed, that is, "depending on the weather". In some areas with unstable weather, mold is easy to occur, and the pulp with high sugar content is extremely easy to attract insects, so the quality of sun-dried coffee beans cannot be guaranteed.
In order to improve the quality of coffee, in 1740, the Dutch, who controlled colonial coffee cultivation and world coffee trade, began to use washed coffee beans. It was first discovered in the West Indies that peeling coffee beans and soaking them in water can remove the sticky pectin layer, which can reduce the drying time of coffee beans and effectively prevent diseases, insect pests and mold from infecting coffee beans. Compared with sun-drying, coffee beans that are washed with water are neat and look good, so they are popular among people. At that time, washed beans were a symbol of high quality.
The introduction of the coffee cherry peeling machine in 1844 made the washing process more efficient and the production quality more uniform. The cost of washing treatment is also very high and requires a large amount of water source. On average, 200 kilograms of green coffee beans consume 10-20 tons of water. Washing treatment plants can only be established close to water sources. It can be said that flavor and taste only account for a small part of the reason for the emergence of water washing treatment. The larger reason comes from the considerations of controlling yield, output, and product standardization.
The first three steps of the water washing method are the same as the sun treatment method (1. Harvesting mature coffee fruits 2. Preliminarily picking out impurities and inferior beans 3. Screening floating beans)
4. Remove the peel and pulp: The selected good coffee fruits are put into the pulp screening machine to remove the outer peel and pulp leaving the seeds (coffee beans).
5. Fermentation to remove pectin: Put the coffee seeds with a layer of mucous membrane (pectin) attached to them into the fermentation tank, and use biological treatment method to dissolve the pectin through fermentation bacteria.
6. Washing to remove impurities: Since the fermentation bacteria will remain on the coffee beans, the beans need to be sent to the washing tank for cleaning and a second screening (defective beans will float on the water). In order to clean this step, a large amount of water will be consumed in the process.
7. Coffee beans are dried: usually spread out in the sunsun dried(orWill use machines toCoffee fruit drying), let the moisture content drop to 10~14%.
8. Remove the endocarp and silverskin: Finally, use a shelling machine to remove the remaining endocarp and silverskin. That is, the processing is completed, and the green beans can be packaged and shipped!
In the Front Street physical store, we have set up a special display area to display beans with different coffee bean processing methods and different roasting levels for everyone's reference. You can compare and find that after roasting, the washed beans will have a white line in the middle, but the sun-dried beans do not. When ground into powder, the white line will become finely divided, which is the silver skin.
The Front Street roaster explained that during the roasting process, the silver skin on the center line of the coffee bean is the most difficult to peel off. Because the outer layer of sun-dried beans is completely connected, it can be peeled off very cleanly after roasting, and there will be no white crumbs in the coffee powder; washed beans are on the contrary, because there are no large pieces of silver skin connected, and the silver skin in the middle crack cannot easily fall off. This is the most direct basis for baristas to judge washed beans and sun-dried beans. Another way is to taste the flavor.
Yirgacheffe, which is also famous for its "citric acid", shows different flavor trends in the washed Front Street Ding Ding and the sun-dried Front Street Red Cherry. The Front Street Ding Ding has a fresh and clean flavor of jasmine, green tangerine, and green tea, with more sourness and less sweetness, low mellowness, and a heavy tea feel; the Front Street Red Cherry has more complex aromas of berries, oranges, and slightly fermented black tea, with balanced sourness and sweetness, and a thicker taste.
Front Street believes that in the same production area, the washed method is the basic flavor of a coffee bean, which highlights the main flavor. Sun-drying and honey processing add aroma and sweetness to this basic flavor, weakening the main flavor and making a cup of coffee more complex. Therefore, it is easy to distinguish the taste of these two coffee processing methods: washed is the taste of the beans themselves, showing a direct sour aroma and brightness, and the overall cleanness is like drinking a cup of flower and fruit tea; while sun-dried is the comprehensive expression of beans + peel and pulp, so it is easier to taste the complex aroma of ripe fruits.
If you like washed coffee, choose medium-light coffee beans with obvious floral aromas such as Front Street Poquette Geisha, Front Street Butterfly, Front Street Walk Manor Geisha, Front Street Cherry Tomato, and Front Street Alo washed coffee beans. Here we choose one to show you how to extract to better show the tonality of flower and fruit tea.
Coffee Beans: Front Street Washed Alo Main Site
Coffee powder: 15g
Pink to water ratio: 1:16
Grinding degree: EK43s scale 10 grids (China No. 20 screen screening rate 80%)
Water temperature: 90℃
Brewing method: four-stage
Grind 15g of Front Street Alo coffee beans into powder, pour it into moistened filter paper, and pat it flat; follow the old rules for the first part, steam 30g of hot water for 30 seconds;
Inject 90g of hot water in a circle from the center of the second section to the outside. Try to use a large flow of water to raise the liquid level to two-thirds of the height of the filter cup.
Wait for the coffee liquid to flow halfway, about 1 minute to 1 minute and 05 seconds, and start to inject the third section of 60g in a small circle. After the water is injected, it will be just flush with the pink wall, and continue to wait for the liquid level to drop;
When you see that the water level reaches half of the filter cup again, continue to inject the last 60g in a small circle around the center. When all the coffee liquid is dripped, the total extraction time is 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
Since most of the washed beans with floral aroma are lightly roasted and have a hard texture, Front Street added segments to improve the extraction of light small molecule substances. At the same time, in order to avoid over-extraction, the water temperature was appropriately lowered. The Front Street Alo brewed in this way has a delicate fragrance of yellow lemon and mango, and a juicy taste like grapefruit tea, with almost no bitterness and just the right sweetness and sourness.
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
