For more knowledge about specialty coffee, please pay attention to: Front Street Coffee (Frontsteet Coffee）
Coffee is a global drink. In addition to the diversification of production methods, coffee with different flavors and tastes can be produced through different extraction methods. It has extremely high experience value, both visually and in terms of taste.Traditional Italian coffee is characterized by a strong taste, mellow aroma and sweetness. It relies on dark roasted coffee beans to produce coffee with nutty and chocolate flavors. It is a very popular coffee.
For those who like this type of mellow-tasting coffee, we recommend the Front Street Classic Italian Blend Coffee. This is a recipe composed of three origins: Brazil, Indonesia, and Vietnam. It uses deep roasting, which can highlight the mellow aroma of the coffee to the greatest extent, and also allows everyone to easily extract rich and dense coffee oil. It is very suitable for making American style diluted with water or latte with milk.
Italian coffee has a very long history, so in the long history of development, it has slowly developed a path of differentiation that does not use blended beans as the main raw material. Instead, single-origin beans are used to make espresso. This type of espresso made from a single origin, a single variety, is called SOE.
What is SOE
SOE's full name is Single Origin Espresso. The Chinese literal translation is espresso made from a single origin and a single variety. To put it simply, it is a single-origin espresso. It is easy to understand, that is, if you want SOE in a cafe, you can choose a single-origin coffee from the place of origin to make it. Whether it is a high-quality single-origin Geisha or a low-quality single-origin Brazil, what is produced is SOE, but the quality is different. The emergence of SOE abroad began in 2007 and gradually matured in 2010. At that time, a coffee contestant from London, England, used coffee made by SOE and won the WBC (World Barista Competition) championship. Subsequently, SOE coffee attracted attention and gradually became popular.
Many friends often can't tell the difference between soe, single-origin coffee beans, blended beans, Pour over(V60) coffee beans, and espresso coffee beans. Here Front Street will briefly explain it to you. According to the use, they can be divided into Pour over(V60) coffee beans represented by the drip method represented by hand brewing and espresso coffee beans used for pressurized extraction represented by espresso machines. Their main difference is the difference in roasting degree. However, due to historical reasons, most of the coffee beans used for hand brewing are single-origin coffee beans, while the coffee beans used for Italian style are mainly blended coffee beans.
Single-origin coffee beans are coffee beans from a single origin. The important thing here is that single-origin coffee beans only pay attention to the origin of the place of origin, not whether the variety is single. Blended coffee beans refer to the artificial blending of coffee beans from more than two production areas to achieve better flavor, higher stability or more advantageous prices. Therefore, strictly speaking, blending beans of different coffee varieties from the same origin (estate) is not a blend of coffee beans.
Soe refers specifically to espresso made from single-origin coffee beans. Soe coffee beans are roasted into single-origin coffee beans suitable for Italian coffee extraction.
Does Front Street’s explanation make it much clearer...
Why are soe coffee beans more expensive than blended coffee beans?
The reason is simple, because the SOE coffee beans used by merchants have better raw materials and higher costs.
In fact, it is blended with better quality coffee beans, the price is not low, and the flavor is no less than soe. For example, Front Street's Sunflower Warm Sun Blend is a blend of single-origin Yirgacheffe red cherries and single-origin Honduran sherry. It has distinct flavor characteristics, including vanilla cream, sherry aroma, chocolate, and brown sugar. This coffee bean is also used in the Italian coffee beans produced by the Front Street store and is enthusiastically sought after by customers.
Due to historical reasons, the word blending has become a stereotype in many people's minds. This is also the reason why many businesses do not choose high-quality blending. The word "SOE" forms a sharp contrast to blending (matching corresponds to a single product, and a bad impression corresponds to a good impression).
So are there coffee beans that can be brewed by hand as well as soe?
Front Street said before that there is a roasting difference between beans used for hand brewing and beans used for Italian coffee. This is because some coffee beans are roasted slightly lighter to express the strong acidity, and the espresso extracted with an Italian coffee machine will have a sour and irritating taste. However, there are also coffee beans that are roasted to a degree that can be used both for hand brewing and Italian soe.
For example, the Brazilian Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon coffee beans on Front Street are medium-dark roasted. When brewed by hand, it has a rich chocolate and peanut butter taste, and the sweetness of sucrose is also very obvious. Used to extract soe coffee, it can also extract rich oils. It tastes very rich in chocolate nut aroma, not burnt and bitter, and has a very high sweetness.
There is also a Yirgacheffe red cherry coffee bean, which Front Street uses medium-light roasting. The Pour over(V60) coffee has a very sweet aroma of berries, fruit acid, cream, and fermentation. Since the roasting degree is not too light, it is also suitable for espresso machines. The soe coffee produced has a very fragrant strawberry fruity aroma, a fruity sour taste, the aroma of caramel cream, and the flavor of black tea.
Also in the Ethiopian production area, there is a high-altitude Oiran 8.0 coffee that has become the staple coffee of many friends because of its full and rich strawberry and citrus aroma. However, if you directly use medium-light roasted beans to make soe, it will easily cause splashing, sourness and astringency. Therefore, in order to allow everyone to make their own Oiran soe at home, Front Street has also launched a medium-roasted SOE option. Just check it when placing an order.
Extraction parameters of SOE Oiran espresso
Coffee beans: Ethiopian Oiran 8.0
Amount of coffee powder: 20g
Coffee liquid volume: 40g
Powder to liquid ratio: 1:2
Extraction time: 26~32 seconds
Grinding scale: Galileo 2.0 grid
The coffee machine used by Front Street has a double powder bowl capacity, which requires 20 grams of coffee powder each time. The extracted powder-to-liquid ratio is 1:2, which means 40 grams of coffee liquid can be produced in a reasonable time. The extraction time is related to the flow rate of the coffee powder. Generally, the single extraction time will be controlled between 20 and 35 seconds. If it is less than 20 seconds, the coffee will easily taste thin and bland, and if it exceeds 35 seconds, it will easily over-extract and cause the coffee to have a burnt and bitter taste. Therefore, Front Street will control the espresso time within the range of 26 to 32 seconds.
Before extraction, we need to dry the powder bowl first, turn on the grinder, grind out a double portion of coffee powder, place it on an electronic scale and measure the increase or decrease until it weighs 20 grams. Then use a powder spreader to spread the coffee powder, and use the tamper to press vertically downward to fill the coffee powder cake tightly to ensure more stable coffee extraction.
Then turn on the extraction switch and let in water for 1 to 2 seconds to moisten the brewing head and take away the coffee grounds stuck on it. Place an electronic scale under the cup where the Espresso is connected, return the weight to 0, and place it under the brewing head during extraction.
Gently snap the handle onto the brewing head and start turning down the extraction switch. Observe the changes in the extraction liquid. When the electronic scale shows that 40 grams of coffee liquid has been extracted, and the time is about 30 seconds, pull down the extraction switch. The brewing parameters will change subtly based on the daily air humidity and the state of the coffee beans, so the amount of coffee powder, scale, and extraction amount of coffee liquid need to be adjusted up or down.
The extracted Oiran SOE can be drank directly. Remember to rinse your mouth with a glass of water. You can taste the dense oil foam and the rich tropical fruit aroma of the lower coffee liquid. If you can't accept the strong bitterness of espresso, of course you can also add ice water or warm water according to your preference at a ratio of 1:4 to make a refreshing SOE Oiran American style, or add whipped milk at a ratio of 1:6 to soften the taste, and you will have a delicious cup of SOE Oiran Latte.
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
