When we say coffee is sweet, it not only refers to the sweetness in taste, but also the sweetness in smell. Therefore, from the perspective of tasting, only sour coffee with a sweet base can be called a high-scoring flavor experience. To make coffee sour and sweet, roasting plays a key role.
When a coffee is heated from the beginning to the end of the roasting process, sweetness is the first flavor to develop, followed by sourness. Combined with the law of taste development, as the roasting degree deepens (time increases), the sweetness of coffee will continue to increase until it reaches a peak (usually in medium to dark roasting), and then begins to decrease at an accelerated rate. Therefore, if you look at the sweetness from a roasting perspective, the medium roasting range often has the most "sweetness".
As ordinary consumers, although we cannot interfere with the baker's idea of sour and sweetness, we can judge the "sweetness" of the beans based on the flavor description. For example, those whose flavors are dominated by slightly sour fruits such as melon, preserved fruit, peach, mango, guava, and sweet orange are those that are more sweet than sour. They often also have words such as fermentation, ripeness, and fruit sugar. Those whose flavors are dominated by sour fruits such as lemon, passion fruit, bulim, and plums are usually coffees that are more sour than sweet. If you don’t know how to choose, just refer to these selected items from Qian Street:
1. Front Street Sidamo Alo
Flavor: floral, mango, guava, citrus, dried strawberry, sweet and sour taste, light and rich aroma
2. Front Street Jade Green Label Geisha
Flavor: jasmine, honeydew melon, citrus, peach, Tieguanyin tea, rich layers and soft taste
3. Front Street Mozart
Flavor: raisins, osmanthus, sweet orange, sweet in the mouth,The fermentation feeling is obvious
4. Queen’s Manor on Front Street
Flavor: Cream chocolate, cane sugar, nuts, moderate body, clear sweet aftertaste
The sourness comes out first than the sweetness
The coffee extraction process can be divided into three stages. The first stage is the easiest to release light molecular aroma substances, such as floral aromas, and bright fruit acids; the second stage will extract a large amount of caramelized substances, including vanilla, sucrose, chocolate, nuts, cream and other sweet-related flavors. The last stage begins to appear a large number of macromolecule substances that are difficult to dissolve. They mainly make the taste of coffee tend to be thick, woody, sharp, bitter and other undesirable manifestations.
Therefore, sweetening coffee is actually to obtain a larger proportion of sweet substances as much as possible, that is, to find a reasonable solution to "suppress bitterness and promote sweetness". Back to our topic today, if you want to improve the sweetness of lightly roasted beans while retaining the beautiful aroma substances in the first stage, then you must first ensure the control of the sour aroma in the first stage, and secondly, master the key extraction part of the second stage.
How to sweeten light roasted coffee?
In terms of parameters and techniques, in addition to highlighting the sweetness and sourness of lightly roasted flowers and fruits, it is also necessary to improve the overall body and mellowness of the coffee. Front Street will increase the ratio of powder to water by 1 to 2℃Water temperature, increasing segments, and matching techniques are implemented. Here we use Front Street Costa Rican blackberries for brewing demonstration. This is a Caturra coffee processed with honey, which has an obvious sweetness during extraction.
Coffee Beans: Front Street Costa Rican Blackberry
Amount of powder: 15g
Pink to water ratio: 1:16
Grinding degree: regular fine grinding (EK43s scale 10 divisions)
Filter cup: V60
Water temperature: 93℃
Segmented water injection: four sections (30g/70g/70g/70g)
In the first stage, inject 30g of hot water and steam for 30 seconds. Make sure that all the coffee powder can contact the water and be in the same pre-extraction state;
After 30 seconds, use a small stream of water (4ml/s）Inject the second section of 70g in a small circle clockwise from the center. The purpose is to allow the coffee to continue to discharge gas and at the same time raise the powder layer to 3/5 of the filter cup. The injection is completed in about 55 seconds. The timing scale displays 100g;
When the liquid level drops and is about to reveal the powder bed, you can start to inject the third section of 70g, and also maintain a slow flow of 4ml/s. At this time, the circle can be larger than the second section, in order to bring out more sweet substances. The injection will be completed in about 1 minute and 15 to 20 seconds, and the timing scale will show 170g. Be careful not to pour water too quickly to avoid pushing the water level up. Try toMaintain a balanced rhythm between water launching rate and water injection amplitude。
When the powder bed is exposed again, you can pour the last 70 grams. The technique is the same as the second segment. Try to control the water flow not to be too large, because it is easy to break up the powder layer and cause insufficient extraction. The injection should be completed in about 1 minute and 45 seconds.The final total water volume was 240g.The whole journey took 2 minutes and 12 seconds.
adoptThe front street blackberries brewed by this method have a distinct sweetness at the entrance, including grape, melon, sugar cane, and blueberry jam.Ripe fruitflavor,Compared with the usual three-stage, the acidity is much softer, the body is thicker, and the sweetness is long-lasting. Even if the temperature drops, the fruity sweetness is still full, and the aftertaste is accompanied by a faint rose fragrance.
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
