Black coffee is bitter to some people and sour to others. But if you hear "Wow, this cup of coffee is so sweet!" I believe you will think to yourself,"How can black coffee be sweet?"
Front Street also explained in an article analyzing the material composition of green coffee beans that sucrose and polysaccharides account for 50% of green coffee beans, but the polysaccharides (carbohydrates) that account for the largest proportion have basically no sweetness and are difficult to dissolve in water; the remaining about 8% of sucrose substances can produce sweetness.
This is only at the green bean level. After roasting coffee beans, these substances will also change. For example, sucrose will be converted into caramel; therefore, roasted coffee does not actually have the sweetness provided by pure sugar.
If you feel the sugar-like sweetness when drinking black coffee, it is not from the sweetness of the taste, but from the sweetness of the flavor. This is easy to understand. In a cup of coffee, we can easily taste the bitterness and sourness because these are perceived by the taste buds.
We can detect the sweetness in coffee, and a large part of it depends on the sweet aroma smelled by the sense of smell. It is mainly divided into three types. Front Street lists them in order according to the degree of roasting:
1. If you want to drink the sweetness of honey, pomelo, mango, honeydew melon, and fruit candy, we recommend Front Street Jade Green Label Gesha, Front Street Sidamo Alo, and Front Street Yirgacheffe; they are mainlyfrom light roastJuenone (flavor source of baked apples and honey).
2. If you want the sweetness of chocolate, preserved fruit, and sucrose, we recommend Front Street Queen’s Manor, Front Street Strawberry Candy, and Front Street Yunnan Small Grains Typica; they are mainly made of medium roastedFlavor formation provided by furanones (the flavor source of caramel and maple syrup).
3. If you don’t like sourness and want to drink the sweetness of dark roasted coffee, we recommend coffees such as Front Street Golden Mandheling, Front Street Brazilian Red Bourbon, and Front Street Jamaica Blue Mountain. We can taste sweet flavors such as caramel, maple syrup, and toffee at the same time.
Can coffee be made sweeter by changing the method?
Sweetness is an irresistible taste for humans. Many friends, including Front Street, who like to share brewing methods, have had the experience of sharing how to brew coffee to make it sweeter. In fact, no matter how much the specific methods of each school have changed, the underlying core idea is to dissolve more acidic substances and sweet substances within a specified time.
Brew and share
The coffee beans used in Front Street this time are Front Street Esai Oiran in the bean list. They are sun-dried and medium-light roasted, with the sweetness of ripe strawberries and honey. The filter cup used in Front Street is V60, and the extraction parameters are as always:
Amount of powder used: 15g
Grinding degree: 75%~80% screening rate of No. 20 mesh, 10-scale grinding of Ek43
Pink to water ratio: 1:15
Brewing water temperature: 92°C
First, we use 30ml of hot water to steam for 30 seconds to remove the carbon dioxide in the coffee beans that hinders extraction.
After steaming, we use a relatively large water flow to inject 120ml of hot water in a large circle. The water injection rate in the front street here is 6ml/s, and the injection is completed in 20 seconds.
When the hot water in the filter cup has almost penetrated, we can see that the powder bed in the filter cup has formed a bowl shape. So at this time, our hot water needs to be injected concentratedly in the center.
And because our water injection rate is relatively high in the second section, the launching speed will be relatively faster. If we want the coffee to be sufficiently extracted, then when injecting the third stage of hot water, we need to lower the water injection rate and extend the extraction time to ensure that the coffee can have a sufficient extraction rate.
Therefore, in the third section we use a small flow of water and then inject it in a small circle in the center. A total of 75ml of hot water is injected in this section, and the water injection rate in the front street is 4ml/s. When all the injected hot water has seeped out of the filter cup, we can remove the filter cup and end the extraction!
It takes a total of 2 minutes and 15 seconds. As mentioned before, the Oiran made in this way has a particularly high sweetness and rich layers. Orange blossom, strawberry, citrus, cream, and honey are the fragrant aromas that can be caught in Front Street. The aftertaste is oolong tea. After swallowing, there is a long berry aftertaste that intensifies in the mouth, which is very comfortable.
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
