The taste and texture of ice-drip coffee is very special. In the words of fans, it means that there is a "wine" taste in ice-drip coffee. Some friends who drank it for the first time were surprised and asked Front Street whether alcohol was added to the ice drops, or did the coffee beans themselves have a "wine flavor"?
In fact, it is not the case. The "alcoholic taste" in most ice-drip coffee comes from its unique production method.
Ice dripping uses ice water to penetrate the coffee powder drop by drop, and then extracts the coffee liquid. First, you need to prepare a set of ice dripping pots, and then freshly roasted coffee beans with full aroma.
Front Street is accustomed to using fruit-flavored coffee beans to make ice-drip coffee. Single-origin beans processed through honey processing, sun-drying, and anaerobic processing are preferred, such as Front Street Chiclaw, Front Street Blackberry, Front Street Oiran, Front Street Red Cherry... This type of coffee contains higher fruit content, and the flavor descriptions are mostly peach, mango, lychee, raisin, passion fruit, orange, pineapple, etc.
Each time Front Street makes it, 60g of coffee powder is used to extract 600ml of coffee liquid (the taste will be thicker, and ice will be added later). The frequency of dripping ice water is about 7 drops per 10 seconds, and the total time is generally 6 to 8 hours. Therefore, the preparation time of iced drip coffee is one of the longest among all coffee preparation methods.
After the drip filtering is completed, it does not mean that the iced drip coffee is ready. If you have tasted freshly filtered ice-drip coffee, you will obviously feel that the flavor is insufficient, the taste is slightly thin, and there may even be an unpleasant astringency in the mouth. This is because the coffee substance is still floating in the water, and the two are not fully integrated, so it will form a "fragmented feeling" when you drink it.
Therefore, after the ice-drip coffee is filtered, it usually needs to be put into a sealed bottle and placed in the refrigerator for low-temperature maturation (some people will also call it "low-temperature fermentation"). During the low-temperature maturation process, the esters that provide the fruity aroma to coffee are hydrolyzed into carboxylic acids and alcohols, and the latter provide the fermentation aroma.
Generally speaking, filtered ice-drip coffee only needs to be placed in the refrigerator for more than 8 hours, and the taste of the coffee will become smooth and mellow. Especially the fruity beans will be overflowing with the aroma of fruit wine and fermentation, and it will taste like drinking alcohol. And the longer the ice-drip coffee is left, the stronger the "alcoholic taste" becomes. For example, Front Street Kenya cherry tomato coffee beans are made into ice-drip coffee. After being matured for 12 hours, the flavor is a fragrant fruit wine flavor, with translucent and clean berries that are sour yet calm, with a mellow fermentation feel.
In fact, it is not only ice-drip coffee that can create a "wine taste". If you make a cup of acidic hot coffee and forget to drink it, if you smell the cup of coffee the next day, it will also emit a fermented wine aroma. If the coffee itself has a fermented smell, it may even evolve into the smell of rotten fruit and rancidity after overnight.
Hot Pour over(V60) coffee is extracted at high temperatures. When placed in a room temperature environment over time, it will also ferment into a wine-like aroma. However, the degree of fermentation is uncontrollable, so it is very easy to deteriorate. The low-temperature extraction of ice-drip coffee can inhibit the reproduction rate of bacteria. Sealing and low-temperature maturation are also to slow down the fermentation rate of coffee and inhibit bacterial reproduction.
But even so, if the ice-drip coffee is matured for too long, there is a risk of deterioration. Even if it does not deteriorate, too strong a sense of fermentation will make the entire cup of ice-drip coffee unbalanced. For safety and flavor considerations, Front Street recommends that ice-drip coffee be served in5~6Finish drinking within a day.
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
