Americano coffee is the most popular category in coffee shops. You can get a cup of mellow coffee in a few minutes at an affordable price. It can also help wake up sleepy office workers. What flavors does Americano coffee have? Why don’t we listen to Front Street and let’s talk~
The origin of American coffee
We can probably think from the name that Italian coffee should come from Italy, while American coffee should come from the United States. The rise of American coffee dates back to the 18th century.
Americans were extremely dissatisfied with the expensive tea import duties imposed by the British government, so the "Boston Tea Party" broke out in 1773 and advocated drinking coffee instead. Gradually, the number of cafes in the United States continued to expand, prompting the coffee industry to flourish in the United States. By the 1880s, about one-third of the world's coffee beans were sold to the United States. During World War II, American coalition troops consumed a large amount of coffee every day to relieve the monotonous life and at the same time improve the spirits of the soldiers. However, the U.S. military couldn't get used to the strong bitterness of espresso, so they added water to the coffee liquid to dilute it to a concentration acceptable to them. Later, in cafes opened in the United States, Italians also "follow the Romans" and introduced "watered-down coffee" based on espresso, which became very popular.
What is Americano?
Americano coffee is a type of black coffee. It is composed of espresso liquid + water extracted by an espresso machine, and does not add other excipients.
To make American coffee, the coffee is ground into powder, and the espresso extracted according to a ratio of 1:2 is poured into an appropriate proportion of water for dilution. The Americano coffee produced at the Front Street Dongshankou store is made from sunflower warm sun blended coffee beans. 20g of coffee powder is used to extract 40g of coffee liquid. The hot Americano coffee is prepared according to the ratio of 1:6 prepared through many tests on Front Street, that is, 240g of hot water at 88°C.
If iced Americano is produced, the hot water will be replaced with 120 grams of ice cubes and 120 grams of room temperature water. The taste will be best before the ice cubes melt.
American coffee taste
Through Front Street’s brief description of how Americano coffee is made, it is not difficult to see that the taste of a cup of Americano coffee depends on the coffee beans used. The American coffee in coffee shops usually uses special Italian blended coffee beans. The front street store uses Ethiopian sun-dried red cherry coffee and Honduran whiskey barrel-processed sherry coffee, and the sunflower warm sun blend is blended according to 3:7. The Americano coffee has a rich aroma of wine, vanilla cream, sweet and sour berries, and a flavor of roasted nuts. In addition, if you use espresso as the base to make a hot latte, the coffee will have a sweet and smooth chocolate taste.
High-quality blended coffee can blend and complement the flavors in the coffee beans. To highlight the aroma in the coffee beans and balance the flavor of each bean, medium-dark roasting is used. High-concentration espresso coffee does not have an irritating sour taste and weak flavor, making the extraction more stable.
In addition to the blended coffee beans that balance the taste, Americano coffee also uses SOE, which refers to espresso made from single-origin coffee beans. As the specialty coffee culture continues to deepen, high-quality single-origin coffee beans for hand brewing are also added to espresso coffee. They are usually selected from coffee beans that are not roasted too darkly and will exhibit the unique flavor and tonality of the production area.
What kind of coffee beans are used to make American coffee?
Many friends have coffee equipment at home and are eager to try it. They want to make American coffee by themselves, so they ask Qian Street what coffee beans are good. Front Street believes that no matter how you extract it, you first need to choose a pack of high-quality coffee beans that you like. That means it needs to be of good quality, and the second is to choose the flavor type you like. Below Front Street uses the coffee on the bean list as an example to recommend several different styles of coffee beans. You can choose according to your own taste. In addition, Front Street recommends using freshly roasted coffee beans, which makes it easier to extract the aromatic flavor in the coffee. Therefore, the coffee beans sent out by Front Street are all freshly roasted within 5 days, so that everyone can enjoy the best tasting period of the coffee beans when they receive them.
Recommended coffee blends
There are four espresso coffee bean blends on the Front Street Bean List, including the Sunflower Warm Sun blend mentioned above, and three other bean blends that are also very cost-effective:
1. FrontStreet Coffee-FrontStreet premium blend of 100% Arabica coffee beans:
Colombian washed coffee beans (30%) + Brazilian semi-dried coffee beans (70%), with flavors of nuts, dark chocolate, and caramel.
2. FrontStreet Coffee-FrontStreet commercial blended coffee beans:
Robusta washed coffee beans (10%) + Colombian washed coffee beans (30%) + Brazilian semi-dried coffee (60%), with flavors of nuts, cocoa, and caramel.
3. FrontStreet Coffee-FrontStreet black cocoa blend (100% Arabica) coffee beans:
Yunnan washed arabica coffee beans (30%) + Brazilian semi-sun-dried coffee beans (70%), with soft fruit acid, caramel, and nutty flavors.
SOE single origin coffee recommendation
If we choose single-origin coffee beans to make espresso, since the coffee needs to be extracted under high temperature and pressure, and the coffee powder will be ground very fine, if a suitable extraction range is not found, the coffee will easily have an irritating taste, which will also increase the difficulty of our extraction. Therefore, Front Street recommends using single-origin coffee beans with a medium roast or above.
1. FrontStreet Coffee-Brazilian Queen Manor coffee beans:
This medium-dark roasted coffee bean has a rich oil layer of espresso after SOE extraction. The Americano coffee has the aroma of roasted nuts and hazelnut biscuits, the richness of dark chocolate and the aftertaste of caramel.
2. FrontStreet Coffee-Costa Rica Mozart coffee beans:
Mozart coffee is densely processed to give the coffee beans a high sweetness. When made into SOE Americano coffee, it has a sweet and sour taste of raisins and berries, and the aroma of roses lingers in your mouth after drinking it, which is very pleasant.
3. FrontStreet Coffee-Ethiopian sun-dried red cherry coffee beans:
Sun-dried red cherries are made from fully ripe coffee cherries. The overall cleanliness and sweetness are very high, so they are also suitable for making espresso. The oil on the surface of the espresso is delicate and the color tends to be light yellow. The SOE Americano made by pouring it into water has a sweet aroma of berries, sweet and sour berries and caramel, and a very clean taste.
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
