Coffee has become a necessity in everyone's life. Some people use it to refresh themselves, some people use it to lose weight, and more people do it because of a habit. Coffee contains caffeine, which can indeed help reduce fat, but it cannot be used as a weight loss aid, it is just a drink.
Americano is a type of coffee. It is not as rich in taste as Pour over(V60) coffee and not as strong as espresso. It has a taste halfway between Pour over(V60) coffee and espresso. Some people say that Americano coffee is filter-style black coffee. This is also acceptable.
The reason why Americano is called this is because during World War II, American soldiers chose to mix espresso with hot water in order to absorb more caffeine, so that they could drink twice the concentrated amount of coffee at one time. "American coffee" (English: Americano, Italian: Caffè Americano) is a type of coffee and the most common coffee. It can be black coffee made with a drip coffee pot, or espresso made by adding a lot of water. But the Americano we often call is the latter.
Front Street has always told everyone that coffee must be tasted from hot to cold, so that you can fully taste the flavor of the coffee in the cup, because the flavor of coffee is different from high to cold. However, as everyone's pursuit of coffee is different, there are various brewing methods. Sometimes I just want a cup of refreshing iced coffee, which is refreshing and refreshing at the same time. Especially in the hot summer, having a cup of iced coffee is so refreshing. Among iced coffees, in addition to iced Americano, in recent years we have begun to see iced brew, iced drip, nitrogen iced coffee and other iced black coffees. So, which one is better, iced Americano or hot Americano?
Let’s take a look at the taste differences between Americano coffee and cold Americano coffee:
Hot water + espresso is called a hot American, while adding ice cubes and ice water is an iced American.
Hot American
Hot Americano is black coffee made using a drip coffee pot, or espresso made by adding a large amount of hot water. When making it, the most important thing is speed, convenience and quickness. It is more casual and simple to cook, and the taste is light, sweet and refreshing.
Ice American
The most common iced coffee is Iced Americano coffee. It is made by using an espresso machine to extract espresso at high temperature according to the Italian coffee extraction standards, and then pour it on top of ice cubes and ice water. The ratio of ice cubes to ice water can be adjusted according to personal preference. The higher the water ratio, the weaker the coffee flavor will be.
Overall, there are the following differences:
1. Different appearance: The iced Americano is lighter in color, while the hot Americano is almost transparent, and you can even see the brown coffee at the bottom of the cup.
2. The taste is different: Iced American coffee does not have a strong taste, but has a stronger roasted smoky taste and a lighter sour taste. Hot Americano releases tannins when roasted, which combine with the caramel to create a sweet, slightly bitter taste.
3. Different tastes: Ice American style has a mellow and astringent taste, while hot American style generally has several rich tastes including bitter, sour, sweet, fragrant and astringent.
There is no difference in calories between the two. They are both composed of espresso and water, but one uses ice water and the other uses hot water. The calories of espresso are very low and can be ignored, so they have nothing to do with how much hot water and ice water are added. Water has no calories, and the calories of Americano are almost zero. The hotness and coldness of a food has nothing to do with its heat, just like when we eat ice cream and melted and heated ice cream liquid, both are high in calories at different temperatures.
How to make Americano at FrontStreet Coffee
The method of making American coffee is actually very simple. It is divided into two main steps. The first is to extract the espresso liquid, and the second is to mix the coffee liquid into water.
Although making American coffee is simple, it also tests the barista’s extraction skills. A good cup of Americano coffee cannot be separated from its most basic thing, which is espresso. That is, the first major step is everything about this cup of Americano coffee.
Depending on the beans used, the flavor of the final Americano coffee will be different. So what are the Americano coffee beans you recommend?
"Front Street Blend 100% Arabica Coffee Beans" 75 yuan/454g: Colombian washed coffee beans + Brazilian semi-dried coffee beans, with flavors of nuts, dark chocolate, and caramel.
"Front Street Classic Blend Coffee Beans" 33 yuan/100g; Brazilian semi-sun-dried coffee beans + Indonesian Mandheling coffee beans + Vietnamese coffee beans, with rich coffee oil and mellow taste;
"Front Street Strawberry Candy Espresso" 43 yuan/100g; Costa Rican coffee beans + Panama coffee beans + Ethiopian coffee beans. It has the aroma of roses, strawberry candy and glucose. The sweet and sour fruit is prominent and has a pleasant taste.
The part of making the base is closely related to the grinding degree, dosage, machine extraction pressure, water temperature, powder-to-liquid ratio and other factors of coffee powder. If the coffee is ground too coarsely, it will be easily under-extracted and taste sour; if it is ground too coarsely, it will be over-extracted and become bitter.
When Front Street extracts espresso coffee, according to the capacity of the powder bowl used in Front Street stores, it can hold 20 grams of coffee powder. The extraction pressure of Front Street's espresso machine is about 9 Pa, the water temperature is 93 degrees Celsius, and 40 grams of coffee liquid can be extracted.
Front Street uses the Pegasus E98 espresso machine. Here are the extraction parameters:
Pressure: 9 bar±2
Temperature: 90.5~96°C
Time: 20~30 sec
Pink to water ratio: 1:1.7~1:2
Powder amount: 12g (single espresso) 20g (double espresso)
Extraction concentration volume: 20ml (single portion) 40ml (double portion)
After making the espresso liquid base, only the final step of adding water is left. But what is the Americano ratio?
The ratio of traditional Americano coffee to espresso liquid and water is 1:8, but this ratio is not suitable for all coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee once conducted a comparative test between 1:8 and 1:6 and found that if the espresso made by FrontStreet using this blended bean is diluted with water at a ratio of 1:8, the final Americano coffee will have too weak flavor, too short aftertaste, and even taste too watery. And if it is a 1:6 ratio, it can highlight the taste and characteristics of the American coffee made by the Sunflower Warm Sun blend on Front Street: wine flavor, cocoa aroma and dark chocolate aftertaste, while having a good mellow feel.
The aroma of hot American coffee whiskey will be very active, with less obvious acidity, more of hazelnut and caramel, and high coffee body.
The aroma of Americano coffee at room temperature is not as obvious as that of hot Americano coffee. The acidity is soft and the taste is smooth. Since the concentrated oil layer has not been washed away, it has more of a vanilla creamy smoothness and a nutty and caramel aftertaste.
The aroma of the iced Americano is the least aromatic of the three, but the acidity is the most obvious. After entering the mouth, there is a whiskey aroma, a sour and sweet berry-like aftertaste, and a hazelnut chocolate-like aftertaste, with a refreshing and smooth taste.
Human senses perceive taste differently at different temperatures, so the advantage of hot coffee is that it can sense the taste changes from high temperature to low temperature. At low temperatures, the human tongue will be less sensitive to bitterness and sweetness, while it will be more sensitive to acidity. At the same time, the quinic acid in coffee degrades into quinic acid lactone, so the coffee will be more acidic after being cold. If you want to enjoy the aroma and aftertaste of coffee, Front Street recommends choosing hot American coffee. If you want to cool down, then iced Americano is a good choice.
Front Street Brewing Coffee Suggestions:
Whether the coffee tastes good or not, or which kind of brewing tastes better, mainly depends on personal taste. After all, everyone likes different things, and Front Street has half a hundred single-origin coffee beans from different production areas, as well as blended beans. For example: Front Street Oiran is a floral and fruity coffee, Front Street Brazilian Red Bourbon has peanut and nutty caramel flavors, or Front Street Panama Geisha has a citrus flavor, etc., which can completely satisfy everyone's love and discussion of coffee.
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
