Friends who have been to FrontStreet Coffee stores will easily find that Front Street baristas generally only use two types of filter cups to produce Pour over(V60) coffee, one is Hario's V60, and the other is KONO. However, these filter cups have certain requirements for brewing techniques. If you have not learned how to control a stable water flow, filter cups such as Hario V60 and KONO will be slightly difficult to use.
In order to allow more people to drink a cup of coffee that is brewed without "overturning", the Smart Cup appeared. With the help of this filter cup, even coffee novices can easily get started.
What is Smart Cup?
The full name of the smart cup is "Clever Coffee Dripper". There are many filter cups with piston valves sold as "smart cups" on the market, but in principle, only smart cups sold under the Mr. Clever brand can be called smart cups.
Smart cup brewing principle
What’s special about the Smart Cup is the design of its bottom. The bottom of the smart cup is divided into two parts. The outer layer plays a supporting role; while the inner layer is designed with a piston valve. After the water is started to be filled, the weight of the water will automatically close the piston valve to stop the water, allowing the coffee powder to be fully soaked in the hot water in the upper layer.
After the soaking is completed, place the smart cup on the sharing pot or other container containing coffee extract. After the bottom plate is pressed, the piston valve opens and the coffee extract slowly flows into the container. From this point of view, the smart cup can be said to have the advantages of a French press and a hand-pour filter cup. It can not only provide the French press with a complete immersion environment, retain more coffee oil to make the coffee flavor fuller, but also take into account the filtering function of the hand-pour filter cup, completely filtering out the fine coffee grounds to avoid affecting the taste.
Smart cup brewing process steps
① Fold the lower ribs and side ribs of the filter paper and place it in a smart cup. Add water to moisten the filter paper and fit it to the inner wall of the smart cup.
② Place the smart cup on a flat surface to close the piston valve, pour 15 grams of coffee powder into the smart cup and shake it flat.
③ Press the timer, inject the first 30 grams of hot water, steam for 30 seconds, and the water temperature is 90 degrees Celsius. After steaming, continue to pour hot water to 225 grams.
④ Wait for 1 minute and 30 seconds. Place the smart cup on the mug or sharing pot to open the piston valve to allow the coffee liquid to flow out. The total extraction time is about 1 minute 50 seconds to 1 minute 55 seconds.
What is Pour over(V60) coffee?
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the Pour over(V60) coffee produced by FrontStreet Coffee stores mostly uses two filter cups, Hario's V60 filter cup and KONO filter cup. The characteristic of brewing with this type of filter cup is to use the filter cup with filter paper to filter the coffee grounds. Hand-brewed coffee originated from a whim of Mrs. Melita in Germany. Mrs. Melita loved coffee, but hated the taste of coffee grounds, so she combined her son's blotting paper with a perforated copper pot to create a filter. This may be the first coffee filter cup in history.
Equipment needed for brewing coffee
The equipment required for brewing coffee is: electronic scale with timing function, thermometer, hand brewing pot, filter cup, filter paper, sharing pot, and grinder. The electronic scale is responsible for weighing the coffee powder and water and displaying the extraction time.
The thermometer is used to measure the temperature of water. When it comes to the choice of water temperature, the barista of FrontStreet Coffee, a lightly roasted coffee bean, will choose to use hot water between 90°C and 93°C to brew it; while the barista of FrontStreet Coffee, a darkly roasted coffee bean, will choose to use hot water between 86°C and 88°C.
The filter paper and filter cup play a role in isolating coffee grounds. When it comes to the choice of Hario V60 and KONO, if it is lightly roasted coffee beans, the baristas of FrontStreet Coffee will use V60 for brewing; if it is dark roasted coffee beans, they will choose KONO filter cup.
Hand-brewed coffee brewing process
Friends who often read articles about FrontStreet Coffee should be familiar with the brewing process of FrontStreet Coffee. In order to present the purest taste of each coffee bean in each production area, FrontStreet Coffee will control controllable factors as much as possible, so that friends can taste the purest variety and origin flavor of coffee beans.
When FrontStreet Coffee is produced, it first weighs 15 grams of coffee beans, with a powder to water ratio of 1:15, and injects 225 grams of hot water.
①Put the filter paper into the filter cup and wet it with hot water so that the filter paper fits the inner wall of the filter cup.
②Pour 15 grams of ground coffee powder into the filter cup and shake it evenly.
③Inject the first 30 grams of hot water to completely wet the coffee powder, and steam for 30 seconds to release the carbon dioxide gas from the coffee powder so that the subsequent water flow can better extract the coffee.
④Inject the second section of hot water to 125 grams.
⑤ As the coffee liquid in the filter cup drops to half and is about to expose the powder bed, inject the third section of hot water to 225 grams. The total extraction time is 2 minutes.
What is the difference in flavor between smart cup and Pour over(V60) coffee?
In order to let everyone better understand the difference in flavor between smart cup brewing and hand brewing, FrontStreet Coffee uses the same beans here to let everyone see a better comparison.
Take FrontStreet Coffee’s Yirgacheffe sun-dried red cherries as an example:
FrontStreet Coffee: Yirgacheffe·Red Cherry Coffee Beans
Production area: Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia
Altitude: 1700m～2200m
Variety: Local native species
Treatment method: Sun treatment
The reason why the coffee beans of FrontStreet Coffee are called red cherry is because they come from a local red cherry project. This red cherry project is led by the Dutch company Trabocca, with half of the funding funded by the Dutch government. Since 2005, we have cooperated with many small coffee cooperatives to encourage and assist producers to do their best to improve washing, semi-washing, solarization or other experimental processing methods to improve the quality of coffee. Before the harvest season, Trabocca invites selected smallholder organizations/producers to participate in the production of micro-batch coffee (approximately 1,500 to 3,000 kilograms), and carefully selects 100% ripe red coffee cherries by hand (hence the name Red Cherry Project).
The coffee beans are sun-dried. Front Street believes that coffee beans produced in Yirgacheffe, whether washed or sun-dried, have their advantages. The washed Yirgacheffe coffee beans will have a cleaner taste and brighter acidity; while the sun-dried Yirgacheffe coffee beans will have more prominent juice and sweetness, and the aroma will also be stronger.
Flavor comparison
[Smart Cup Brewing Flavor] Citrus acidity, juice-like taste, full, smooth, fermented wine aroma, and honey aftertaste.
[V60 Brewing Flavor] It has a light fermented wine aroma, with citrus, honey, and cocoa flavors, and a long-lasting aftertaste.
From the comparison of brewed flavors, Smart Cup brewing can better extract the flavor of coffee and has a rich and rich taste. Compared with V60 brewing, it shows a fresher flavor.
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
