With the recent popularity of SOE espresso, many coffee shops also use itSOE coffeeUse it as a selling point. Many people also ask about the difference between FrontStreet Coffee's SOE coffee and blended coffee. Is SOE coffee necessarily better than blended espresso? Front Street doesn’t think so. SOE espresso uses single-origin coffee beans to pressurize and extract through an espresso machine, amplifying the good and bad flavors of the original beans, so unpleasant flavors such as sourness may appear. The purpose of blending coffee is to stabilize the flavor of an espresso, so Front Street is not saying that SOE espresso does not taste good. Compared with espresso blended with coffee beans, SOE will not have the same taste every time even if it is a gamble.
what forSOE Espresso？
What is SOE? "SOE" is actually the abbreviation of "Single Origin Espresso", which translates to: "Single Origin Espresso". That is to say, the espresso coffee made from a single origin is emphasized. Compared with blending, the characteristic of single-origin espresso is that it is easier to identify the flavor of the origin, and it is easier to increase the connection between the origin and consumers.
In addition, SOE single-origin espresso coffee beans will be more difficult to roast. On the one hand, in order to highlight the flavor of a single origin, the roasting degree of SOE coffee beans should not be too deep to avoid too much loss of the flavor of the coffee itself. On the other hand, in order to provide the body and better stability of espresso, the roasting degree of the selected coffee beans should not be too light. So how should we choose between not being too deep and not too shallow? Front Street recommends choosing some medium roasted coffee beans when choosing SOE coffee beans. Single-origin espresso can express the flavor of the production area better than blending, and can also produce espresso with a unique flavor. Therefore, based on this feature, Front Street suggested that making SOE espresso requires rethinking the extraction plan and formulating an extraction plan suitable for the espresso beans. When making SOE-based coffee, the ratio of coffee to water/milk needs to be reconsidered to highlight the flavor expression of the espresso.
Advantages of SOE coffee
Front Street believes that the biggest advantage of SOE is its "single origin" feature. The single-origin factor allows baristas to connect the flavor of the coffee to its origin, just as pour-over coffee does with single-origin coffee. At the same time, because there is only one coffee bean, the taste is not as complex as a blend, that is, compared with a blend, there will be a clearer flavor level (the difference between orange juice and compound juice, a single orange juice can better describe the taste of an orange, but compound juice is more difficult to describe the taste of all the fruits contained).
Disadvantages of SOE Coffee
Although SOE is very common nowadays, and the method of making it is very simple: you only need to change the coffee beans from blended beans to single-origin coffee beans, but is it really that simple? FrontStreet Coffee believes that making SOE is simple, but extracting delicious SOE is not simple, and can even be said to be difficult. What's the difficulty? Just like its characteristics of a single origin, the purpose is to better display a clearer taste, which requires the combination of roasting and extraction.
In terms of roasting, because the flavor of the coffee origin must be reflected, the roasting degree cannot be too dark. Once it is too dark, the flavor of the origin itself will be wiped out. However, it cannot be too shallow, which will increase the acidity of the SOE espresso and cause an imbalance, which increases the difficulty of extraction. In terms of extraction, constant adjustments are required to achieve the ideal state. First, coffee is an agricultural product, and there are differences in each batch of coffee every year. Secondly, the coffee beans after roasting will exhaust gas, and the pressurized extraction of espresso is also very sensitive to many factors, and the freshness of the coffee beans is also a factor that affects the extraction SOE.
How does FrontStreet Coffee extract SOE espresso?
In order to make it easier for everyone to understand, we will use Front Street’s Brazilian Queen’s Manor and Front Street’s Dharma Courtesan as the extraction objects below to demonstrate how to extract a standard cup ofSOE espresso, and add water and milk respectively to make Americano and latte.
FrontStreet Coffee·Brazilian Queen Manor Yellow Bourbon Coffee Beans
Origin: Morgiana
Altitude: 1400～1950m
Variety: Yellow Bourbon
Treatment: Semi-sun drying
Flavor: Roasted nuts, buttered peanuts, chocolate, caramel, cookies
Brazil has a low altitude, flat and monotonous landforms, lack of microclimate, and the habit of growing coffee trees in the sun, resulting in the unique soft bean flavor of Brazil. Front Street cupped Brazilian coffee beans from different production areas and believed that the flavor of Brazilian coffee beans has low acidity, nutty flavor, sweet aroma of chocolate, and mellow taste.
How does FrontStreet Coffee roast Front Street Brazilian Queen Estate coffee beans?
FrontStreet Coffee roasts this Front Street Brazilian Yellow Bourbon Bean using a medium to dark roast. Use Yangjia 800N, add 550g of beans: preheat the temperature to 200 degrees and put it into the pot, adjust the firepower to 150, open the damper to 3, return to the temperature point of 1'30', maintain the firepower, turn yellow at 5'10', the grassy smell disappears, enter the dehydration stage, lower the firepower to 125, wind Open the door to 3.5. At 8'20" dehydration is completed. Wrinkles and black spots appear on the surface of the beans. The smell of toast turns to coffee, which is the prelude to the first crack. When it reaches 178 degrees, the firepower drops to 80. At this time, pay attention to the sound of the first crack. At 9'14" the first crack begins, and the damper is fully opened 5. The development time after the first explosion was 3'00, and the pot was cooked at 201 degrees.
FrontStreet Coffee Brazilian SOE extraction parameters:
Grinding machine: Pegasus 900N
Grinding degree: 1.6
Pressure: 9 bar
Temperature: 90.5~96 degrees Celsius
Time: 28s
Amount of powder: 20g (double espresso)
Extraction volume: 40ml
Flavor and taste: Smooth taste, medium mellow body, obvious buttery peanut aroma in the entrance, nutty and chocolate flavor, and obvious sweet aftertaste.
The Sidamo region is located in the south of Ethiopia, extending to the Arsi and Bale administrative districts in the east and the Gamogofa administrative district in the west. Sidamo coffee is cultivated at an altitude of 1,400m-2,000m. Most of the Sidamo area uses sun-drying treatment to process green coffee beans. Front Street believes that sun-drying process gives the coffee beans in Sidamo area a rich fruity aroma and smooth taste.
FrontStreet Coffee · Ethiopian Sidamo Oiran 8.0 coffee beans
Production area: Gujihambera
Altitude: 2300 meters
Variety: Local native species
Treatment method: Sun treatment
Flavor: Tropical fruit, strawberry, citrus, floral
How does FrontStreet Coffee roast Front Street Sidamo Oiran coffee beans?
FrontStreet Coffee roasts the Front Street Oiran beans using a medium to light roast. Yangjia 800N, the amount of beans added is 480g: the furnace temperature is set to 175 degrees Celsius, and the damper is set to 3, and the heat is 120. When the temperature rises to 140 degrees, the damper is opened to 4 degrees. Bake until 6°00° and the temperature is 151.7 degrees, the surface of the beans turns yellow, the grass smell disappears completely, and dehydration is completed. When ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the surface of the beans, and the smell of toast obviously changes to the aroma of coffee, it can be defined as the prelude to the first crack. At this time, you should listen clearly to the sound of the first crack. The first crack will start at 9°50°, with the damper fully open, 188 degrees and the firepower reduced to 80. The first crack development time is 1°40°, and the pot is cooked at 196 degrees.
FrontStreet Coffee Oiran SOE extraction parameters:
Grinding machine: Pegasus 900N
Grinding degree: 1.7
Pressure: 9 bar
Temperature: 90.5~96 degrees Celsius
Time: 30 seconds
Powder amount: 20g (double concentrated)
Extraction volume: 40ml
Flavor and taste: medium acidity, medium to low bitterness, medium sweetness, sticky taste, berry flavor, slight floral aroma, slight tea feeling, and long aftertaste.
The above extraction parameters are only for reference. The state of coffee beans is different every day. Whether you are using single-origin coffee beans or blended coffee beans to extract espresso, FrontStreet Coffee recommends debugging the espresso every day to ensure that the parameters every day can extract the best flavor of the coffee beans.
For more knowledge about specialty coffee, please add FrontStreet Coffee’s private WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925
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
