Nowadays, in order to create their own brand characteristics, many coffee shops will launch personalized flavored SOE coffee beans for customers to choose. When we confirm that the coffee needs to be changed from blending to SOE, we always need to add a few yuan extra price difference. Why is this?
SOE is the abbreviation of "Single Original Espresso", which literally means single origin espresso, obviously to distinguish it from Italian blended espresso (House Blend Espresso).
When Italian coffee first became popular, coffee shops around the world used single-origin beans, such as mocha coffee and Brazilian coffee. Since it is a matter of course, no one will emphasize or explain it too much. As the consumption demand for coffee continues to increase, coffee beans from major producing areas are prone to unevenness, and the yield, quality and taste may become unstable. In order to avoid risks caused by these factors in extraction, some businesses have begun to combine coffee beans from different origins to make them complement each other.
At the same time, manufacturers will also use dark roasting to eliminate the unpleasant taste and acidity. Dark roasting can also cover up its defects, stabilize the coffee taste, and extract rich coffee oil. In this way, even if the quality of batches in individual origins is low, or if a harvest in a certain planting area results in reduced yields in the coming year, they can be "saved" by adjusting the blending formula.
Therefore, before the advent of the specialty coffee wave, the raw materials used to make espresso were generally a combination of coffee beans from two or more origins, without paying too much attention to the origin and batch of coffee. As for the taste, due to the use of "black and dark" deep roasting, it is basically fixed on the rich and mellow taste of caramel, dark chocolate, nuts, cream, cocoa, etc.
By the 1980s, the industry used a series of scientific methods to improve the quality of coffee beans from many origins, and everyone began to emphasize the concept of "specialty coffee." The roasters are also aware that coffee beans from each origin have their own characteristics, so they consciously adjust the roasting degree of some beans to a lighter level to highlight their regional characteristics and "excavate" more floral and fruity flavors.
Initially, coffee beans from a single origin were only used in drip/immersion brewing methods such as hand pouring, siphoning, and French press. Until 2007, in order to shine in the competition, WBC World Barista Competition contestant James Hoffmann made espresso from single-origin beans and won the championship. In this way, SOE gradually became popular along with the trend of specialty coffee.
It is not difficult to find that SOE, which advocates a single origin, often uses tart beans with a lighter roasting degree. The purpose is to present a rich and light aroma and taste that is different from traditional bitter coffee. For example, the citrus-lemon flavor of Ethiopian beans, the raisin-honey flavor of Costa Rica, and the tomato-berry flavor of Kenya. The higher the recognition, the easier it is for consumers to remember the characteristics of SOE. However, from a cost perspective, higher-quality single-origin beans are naturally more expensive, so it is reasonable to pay extra.
Front Street believes that the original intention of SOE is to highlight the advantages of the beans themselves and highlight the "personalization" of espresso. Compared with blended coffee beans, there is no better or worse. The key lies in whether the user wants to express rich, balanced and affordable cocoa coffee, or a floral and fruity coffee with higher requirements for exquisite flavor.
Nowadays, SOE has undoubtedly become the mainstream, and many coffee shops have also followed the new trend and introduced single-origin beans with more detailed traceability information into the Italian category, hoping to create delicious food that will impress people. However, there are inevitably some single-product concentrates that do not meet expectations. Although they are branded as "SOE", they fail to show the uniqueness of coffee flavor.
As mentioned above on Front Street, SOE uses highly identifiable coffee flavor as its main selling point. Therefore, whether a cup of SOE coffee tastes good is not only a prerequisite for high-quality coffee beans, but also tests the "interpretation" ability of roasters and baristas.
If the coffee beans used to make SOE are roasted too darkly, the resulting concentrate will easily have a bitter taste and the aroma substances will not be reflected; if the roasting degree is too shallow, it will be difficult to develop the mellow substances. Moreover, the requirements for extraction are higher. Once parameters such as grinding, temperature, and proportion are not controlled well, the concentrate will easily become sour or light, and the American style or latte will not have the "coffee flavor".
Therefore, if the roasting and extraction are performed improperly, no matter how high-quality and expensive beans are selected, it will not make much sense no matter how much you emphasize its "singleness".
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
