When Front Street introduces the flavor of coffee beans to customers, he will gain a lot of relevant knowledge. From a coffee bean to the coffee we taste, it needs to go through picking, drying, shelling and screening, roasting, and finally extraction. Each link will more or less affect the flavor performance of the coffee. Roast degree is one of the issues that many people are most concerned about. This article on Front Street will briefly talk about the impact of roast degree on the flavor of coffee.
The roasting principle of coffee beans
A coffee bean is composed of a large number of material components.themAfter high-temperature roasting, a series of chemical reactions will occur to form various flavor compounds. The proportion of flavor compounds directly affects the taste of the finished coffee. Among the factors that determine the taste of a cup of coffee, green beans account for 60%, roasting accounts for 30%, and extraction accounts for 10%, so the importance of roasting is self-evident.
The Maynard reaction and caramelization reaction mainly occur during the entire baking process. The Maynard reaction is the key to the flavor and color of coffee beans. Sugars and amino acids react at high temperatures to form hundreds of flavor compounds, which are brought together to form the unique flavor of coffee beans. The caramelization reaction is the dehydration, degradation and browning of sugars at high temperatures, making the coffee beans darker in color and releasing aromatic and acidic compounds.
The formation of coffee bean aroma and color change are inseparable from the Menard reaction and caramelization reaction. During the roasting process, there are three elements that determine the final flavor of coffee that must be properly controlled: sourness, sweetness and bitterness. Generally, the longer the total roasting time, the less sourness is left in the end. On the contrary, the bitterness becomes stronger over time, so the darker the roast, the more bitter the coffee will be.
How Roast Degree Affects Coffee Flavor
Traditionally, roasters generally use the mainstream dark roast, which canHighlight the rich, burnt coffee taste, and it’s not easy to get a faulty taste. With the introduction of the concept of specialty coffee, people began to emphasize the unique flavor of the production area and advocated coffee with a clean taste and obvious sour and sweet flavors. Therefore, lightly roasted single-origin beans gradually became popular. The deepening of the roasting degree promotes the caramelization of more substances, so if you want to retain more fruit acid and floral aroma, you will use a lighter roasting degree.
The roasting degrees of our common coffee beans on the market can be simply divided into three categories: light roasting, medium roasting and dark roasting.
Light roast: Rich fruit tones, with a sweet and sour floral and fruity aroma, strong acidity can be felt, and the flavor descriptions are mostly floral, citrus, berry, peach, honeydew, tea, berry...such as Front Street Guodingding Cooperative coffee beans.
Medium roast: It has a nutty tone and a fermented taste, mainly the aroma of nuts, baked bread, cocoa, malt, preserved fruit, and fermented wine, such as Front Street Bird of Paradise coffee beans.
Dark roast: with a bit of chocolate and caramel bitterness, low acidity, rich roasted nut flavor, spicy, woody and charcoal flavor, the representative coffee bean is Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling.
Many friends may think that coffee acidity means light roasting, and coffee bitterness means dark roasting. In fact, from the perspective of coffee practitioners, it is not that simple. The choice of roasting degree requires understanding the flavor of the coffee production area and showing the unique taste of home-roasted coffee, in order to become a competitive product in the market. As a sales merchant, Front Street roasters not only need to find the roasting curve corresponding to each coffee bean, but also ensure that the quality of production is stable and consistent. Therefore, if you want to roast coffee well, you need roasters to be familiar with bean characteristics and roasting principles, and they must continue to accumulate experience in order to more perfectly present the complex aroma of coffee beans.
What roasting degree of coffee beans is suitable for SOE?
SOE stands for "Single Origin Espresso", an espresso made from single-origin coffee. The opposite is Italian blended espresso.
When we use blended coffee beans to make espresso, we mix coffee beans from different production areas. As the roasting degree deepens, the flavor and taste become more balanced and rounded, which is more conducive to the stability of extraction. For example, the recently launched Front Street Autumn Chestnut blend uses a new combination of Honduras and Papua New Guinea. The medium roast allows the Italian coffee to highlight the flavor of cocoa, spices, and the sweet aroma of roasted nuts, while also retaining a hint of soft acidity, and the overall tone is soft and delicate.
In order to present the flavor characteristics of the production area (such as the floral and fruity aroma of Africa), roasters will choose a lighter roasting degree to retain more acidity and floral aroma for single-origin coffee. These high-quality flavors expressed in hand brewing actually amplify various flavors when extracted by an espresso machine, making espresso coffee extremely exciting.
The roasting of all single-origin coffees must take into account the unique regional flavor of the place of origin and the aroma of the coffee beans themselves. For example, Kenyan coffee must have bold berry acidity, Blue Mountain coffee must have sweet chocolate and caramel aromas, and Panamanian Gesha must have an tangerine honey flavor. Similarly, SOE should also express the highly identifiable flavor characteristics of the place of origin. The difference is that,These high-quality flavors expressed in hand brewing will amplify various flavors when extracted by an espresso machine, making the espresso extremely exciting. Either the flavor will be masked or the aroma will be lost.Can't be used, like thatSOE becomes meaningless.
Want to show off your unique styleSOE, in addition to testing the skill of the roaster, the extraction process also requires precise control of various parameters. The lighter the roasted coffee beans, the harder the texture. If the extraction intensity is not enough, the espresso will appear bland and tasteless, and if the extraction intensity is excessive, it will become strong and irritating. If you want to find the right extraction rate, you need to adjust various extraction parameters, such as extraction time, water temperature, grinding degree, powder volume, extraction liquid weight, etc. Now everyone understands whySOEIt's not that simple anymore.
Light roasting and dark roasting can easily produce an unpleasant and irritating taste in espresso extraction. Front Street recommends choosing some coffee beans with medium roasting and easier flavor presentation. This will not only enrich the taste of the coffee in our cup, but also be more conducive to the stability of extraction. Here Front Street recommends three flavor types for your reference:
1. Refreshing flavor coffee beans: Front Street Oiran SOE, Front Street Grana Gesha SOE, Front Street Red Cherry SOE;
This type of beans are currently used to make espresso coffee. The surface oil is less, but it is delicate enough. The color tends to be light yellow. It smells like berries, with a mixture of sour and sweet citrus and caramel flavors. The aftertaste is clean. Adding hot milk after whipping will give you a honey and nutty taste.
2、Rich fermented flavored coffee beans: Front Street Hija, Front Street Blackberry
Most of this type of coffee uses honey processing, anaerobic sun drying, anaerobic washing and other processes when the beans are green, so that the fruity aroma of the coffee can be further deepened during fermentation.When brewed by hand, it will present a highly sweet flavor similar to raisins, fruit wine, melon, mango, and honey. When extracted into SOE, it will present a rich tropical fruit and fermented taste.
3、Balanced and full-bodied coffee beans: Front Street Queen’s Manor, Front Street Bird of Paradise
Because this type of coffee beans are roasted to a medium level, they highlight the caramel-like aroma while also retaining a certain sourness. The overall tendency is toA balanced expression of sweet, sour, bitter and sweet.When brewed by hand, there will be the sweetness of toast and nuts, the aftertaste of spices, andIt has a good mellow taste; when made into SOE, it will have the aroma of roasted hazelnuts and chocolate, and the sweetness of melon and sugar cane.Making latte or Australian white is easy to highlight the creamy smoothness。
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
