According to a report from the Meteorological Bureau today, the high temperature in Guangdong will continue until around November. And this means that in the next nearly two months, we still cannot do without the magic tool to relieve the heat - iced coffee!Some friends are just like Front Street. After drinking too much light-roasted iced coffee that is sweet and sour, they sometimes want to change the taste to dark-roasted iced coffee with a rich caramel aroma, so they pick up dark-roasted coffee beans and prepare to cook iced coffee.But it turned out that although the brewing method used is the same as that of light roasted coffee, the dark roasted iced coffee that can be brewed is not only tasteless, but also tastes watery, and the experience is greatly reduced compared to hot brewing. Then some friends will come to the Front Street store and discuss the specific reasons with Front Street.It is not surprising that such a result would occur, because we need to use ice cubes to quickly cool down when making ice hand brewing. In order to offset the dilution caused by melting ice cubes to the coffee, when brewing coffee, we will increase the concentration of the coffee by reducing the amount of water injected.The reduction in water volume will lead to a reduction in coffee dissolved matter, because this parameter affects not only the concentration of coffee, but also the extraction efficiency. Therefore, in addition to reducing the water volume, we will also adjust other parameters to fill the impact of the lack of water volume. This is a general idea of converting a hot punch into an ice punch.However, because the amount of water is reduced more, many friends can only dissolve those sweet and sour substances with smaller molecules and faster dissolution speed, while those macromolecular substances with slower dissolution speed account for very little in coffee.This is not bad for light roasted coffee that focuses on sour and sweet, because the sweet and sour substances needed for light roasted coffee will be dissolved in large amounts in the front and middle portions. But for dark roast coffee, the experience will be greatly compromised. Because the soul characteristics of dark roasted coffee, such as mellowness and sweetness, need to be supported by substances that dissolve slowly.Because of this, the iced coffee brewed by many friends always tastes watery and has a relatively weak taste.So, is there any way to make dark roasted iced coffee taste better?
Of course! Since it is caused by insufficient dissolved substances, we only need to further improve the coffee extraction efficiency!However, the difference between dark roasted coffee and light roasted coffee is that its structure is looser and easier to extract. Therefore, if our water temperature, grinding and other parameters are too extreme, it will easily bring out too much bitter substances, causing the coffee to have an obvious bitter taste. Therefore, compared to water temperature or grinding, Front Street Association recommends that you change the adjustment object to: water injection method!This is also a problem that many friends ignore. Because the amount of brewing water is reduced, the grinding is finer to increase the extraction efficiency, but the impact of the reduction in water amount on the extraction time is ignored.Due to the reduction in the amount of water injected, the extraction time will be reduced to a certain extent while the brewing method remains unchanged. Take Front Street as an example. When Front Street brews hot coffee with 15g of coffee beans, it will inject 225ml of hot water and use a three-stage brewing method, which takes about 2 minutes. If it is brewed with ice, the amount of water injected is 150ml. If the same three-stage brewing is used, the time will be about 1 minute and 30 seconds.The reduction in time not only further reduces the extraction efficiency, but also prevents macromolecules that dissolve slowly from being dissolved in appropriate amounts. Therefore, we need to control the extraction time when brewing.Front Street’s method is to reduce the water flow, but many beginners may not be able to control the water flow well, so Front Street recommends that novice friends use the method of splitting the hot water into multiple sections and injecting it! Front Street has shared before that multi-stage injection can increase the extraction time. The more stages there are, the longer the extraction time will be. Four stages, five stages, or six stages are all available, and the decision should be made based on the actual flow rate. Then Front Street will share with you how to do it through actual brewing!The taste of coffee comes from the ingredients themselves. If we want to brew a pot of delicious coffee, we first need to choose a coffee bean with excellent taste.The coffee beans chosen by Front Street here are the Front Street Sumatra Golden Mandheling from the Front Street bean list. It is the darkest roasted coffee bean sold on Front Street.com.It has the advantages of large, full and uniform particles. The particle size after grinding is more likely to be consistent. At the same time, the flavor is excellent, and the brewed coffee will have a better taste.After we have selected the coffee beans, the next step is to determine its extraction parameters! The parameters used by Front Street when brewing ice brew are as mentioned before, and they are adjustments based on hot brewing: reduce the amount of water, finer the grinding, and then use a small flow of water to inject water to control the extraction time.Then, if you have just started and cannot control the water injection method well, you can use more stages of water injection to reduce the difficulty. At the same time, the amount of powder can be appropriately increased and the amount of water used for brewing can be increased, thereby improving the fault tolerance rate. It is best to pair it with a filter cup with a slower flow rate, such as Kono and Cake. The specific parameters are as follows:Amount of powder used: 20 gramsGrinding degree: 80% screening rate of No. 20 mesh,Ek4310 scale, granulated sugarPink water ice ratio: 1:10:6(20g powder, 200ml hot water, 120g ice cubes)Brewing water temperature: 86~89℃Brewing method: five-stageWater volume distribution: 40ml+40ml+40ml+40ml+40mlThe first is steaming. We use 40ml of hot water to steam for 30 seconds. Pour in a circular motion from the inside out to ensure all the coffee grounds are wetted.After steaming, the remaining four sections are filled with the same amount of water. They all use small water flow to slowly circulate and inject 40ml. Then wait for the hot water penetration to be completed, and then inject the next section of hot water until the target water volume is completely injected. When the last stage of hot water injected has finished flowing, we can remove the filter cup and end the extraction.The total time is 2 minutes and 10 seconds! But you cannot drink it directly at this time, because we need to shake the coffee in the pot to make the concentration and temperature of the coffee consistent.Shake until we think the coffee is cold enough, then pour it into a cup and enjoy your delicious coffee.I believe you can tell from the color of this pot of coffee that its taste should be quite strong. And it’s true, the coffee is strong but not bitter! Not only that, with the low temperature, the sweetness of the coffee is even more prominent than that of hot brewing. In addition to the dark roasted aroma of chocolate, nuts, spices, etc., the coffee in the cup also captures the sweetness of caramel and the fragrance of pine wood in the aftertaste. The taste is very solid, very good! !
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
