If you want good flavor, you should choose freshly roasted coffee beans. This is the consensus we have reached long ago. Based on experience, when the coffee beans are in the "too fresh" stage (0 to 2 days after roasting), we will "raise the beans", that is, leave them intact, wait for them to be slightly exhausted, and then brew and extract them. This way the coffee will have a better flavor.
But recently, Front Street has noticed another way to "solve the problem of too fresh coffee", which is to grind the coffee beans into powder in advance and leave them at room temperature for tens of minutes or even a whole day to accelerate the exhaust. This can make the coffee release flavor substances more evenly during the extraction process, and everyone calls this method "awakening powder".
Why "wake up"?
Front Street has mentioned in many articles that coffee beans will produce a series of chemical and physical reactions during the roasting process, which we can collectively call "Maillard reaction”, which involves allowing each bean to store a large amount of carbon dioxide. When they are freshly baked, the coffee beans will have a pungent roasting smell and the internal gases are very strong. If brewed at this time, the gases will continue to emerge as hot water is injected into the powder layer, thus hindering extraction and making it difficult for flavor substances to be dissolved. This is why the term "bean cultivation" appears.
But sometimes, the coffee beans are still in an "extremely fresh" state, such as they have just been roasted or have only been roasted for 1 to 3 days. However, we are eager to taste it, but we do not want the active gas to affect the extraction. Some people have proposed the concept of "awakening the beans", that is, taking the coffee beans out of the bag or directly opening the seal so that they are in direct contact with the air, thus accelerating the emission of carbon dioxide. The specific awakening time depends on the status and use of the coffee beans, usually ranging from a few hours to a day.
But after all, the coffee bean is a complete individual and still has an airtight structure. Carbon dioxide can only be released slowly, so when it is exposed to the air for too long, it may cause the coffee beans to smell or become damp. So some people thought of pre-grinding to accelerate the emission of carbon dioxide, thereby eliminating this part.gas interference。
Do the grown coffee beans still need to "wake up"? How to "wake up" the powder correctly?
It is not difficult to find out here that whether it is "raising" or "waking up", these are the last resort methods when we are faced with very fresh coffee beans. In other words, if the coffee beans have been exhausted for several days, there is no need to "wake up" to intervene. For example, the coffee beans shipped by Front Street are all roasted within 5 days. Including the time spent on logistics, the beans we receive are usually 3 to 5 days after roasting. If you want to feel the good state (freshness) of the coffee, you can start enjoying it at this time.
But if the coffee beans you get are roasted within 3 days, and have a very obvious pungent or roasted smell after grinding, or the brewed coffee is even full of dryness, it is probably caused by the beans being too fresh. In this case, "waking up the powder" is inevitably a more efficient emergency method.
But we need to know that after coffee beans are ground into powder, the surface area will be thousands of times greater than before, and the finer the grinding, the greater the increase in surface area. Studies have shown that within one and a half minutes after coffee beans are ground into powder, nearly 70% of the gas has been discharged. Therefore, there are certain risks in using the method of "waking up the powder", because although it helps us speed up the exhaust process, it also accelerates the volatilization of the aroma substances in the coffee. If you are not careful, the result will be more than worth the loss.
In this regard, Front Street recommends that you try not to be too aggressive when using "awakening powder", and you can make adjustments based on the aroma. For "too fresh" coffee beans, we first grind them into powder andCover to prevent foreign objects from falling in, and then leave it at room temperature for 5 to 20 minutes. Smell it every 4 to 5 minutes and feel the changes in each stage. When the smell of coffee powder gradually changes from harsh and irritating to clear and soft, we can start brewing.
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
