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As more and more people in China have developed the habit of drinking coffee, many friends have begun to take the initiative to learn about coffee brewing and want to brew a cup of coffee by themselves. This article will talk about which coffee beans are suitable for novices in hand brewing.
What is pour-over coffee?
The coffee beans we usually buy are roasted at high temperatures and undergo a series of chemical reactions to generate various aromatic substances. When we make coffee, we use water and equipment to release these aromatic ingredients. To make Pour over(V60) coffee, the coffee beans are first ground into powder, and then hot water is injected into the powder layer to "dissolve" the substances in the coffee. In fact, you use a filter cup with filter paper or other tools to filter the coffee grounds and prevent them from entering the lower pot, so you can get a clear cup of black coffee.
You must know that from bean selection to extraction, every link and step has a greater or lesser impact on the flavor of Pour over(V60) coffee. Therefore, if you want to brew a cup of Pour over(V60) coffee, speaking from Front Street’s brewing experience, in addition to high-quality coffee beans, Front Street believes that at least the following equipment is needed: a hand-pour pot for filling water, a filter cup and filter paper for filtering coffee grounds, a sharing pot, a grinder for grinding coffee beans, an electronic scale to record the amount and time of water injection, and a thermometer to measure the water temperature.
Of course, good coffee cannot be separated from good raw materials - high-quality coffee beans. Front Street recommends that you choose coffee beans that are in the best tasting stage 4-30 days after the roasting date. This is more conducive to stable extraction and the flavor of Pour over(V60) coffee is fuller. In order to ensure the freshness of the coffee beans, the coffee beans delivered by Front Street are all freshly roasted within 5 days, and usually can be received in 1 to 3 days. In this way, the coffee beans that everyone gets are almost within the best tasting period, and they can start studying how to extract them.
Recommended hand brewed specialty coffee beans
If you are a newbie who just started brewing coffee, and you are afraid that the high-priced and small-volume coffee beans will be washed away and wasted, Front Street recommends starting with the cost-effective Front Street ration beans. Front Street has selected 7 excellent classic coffee production areas, covering many representative production areas, varieties, and natural processing methods. The so-called ration beans, as the name suggests, are varieties that are easy to drink on a daily basis, and the price and flavor are very close to the people. Front Street has selected a number of "facade representatives" so that everyone can identify the basic flavors of each major production area.
Ethiopia’s Front Street Washed Yirgacheffe Coffee Beans
The so-called Yirgacheffe flavor refers to the beautiful aroma of citrus, lemon, berry and rich flowers, as well as the clear tea taste, making it an unforgettable drink. In order to express such exquisite flavor and taste, coffee’s high-quality growing environment, variety, processing methods, roasting and brewing are all indispensable.
Ethiopia, located on the African continent, has underdeveloped water resources, so it has traditionally used the ancient sun-drying method to process green beans, that is, drying them directly in the sun. Because the techniques are too rough, the quality of the coffee is generally low. Until 1972, Ethiopia introduced washing processing technology and equipment from Central and South America in order to improve the quality of coffee beans. Unlike other production areas, Yirgacheffe is a wetland and is more suitable for washing treatment. The multiple steps of the water washing step eliminate bad beans, which greatly reduces the defect rate of the coffee, showing a higher degree of cleanliness, and its own aroma becomes clearer and more thorough.
This move also multiplied the citrus citric acid and white floral aroma of Front Street Yirgacheffe coffee beans, making the taste even fresher and brighter. The Front Street Yirgacheffe ration beans launched by Front Street are medium-light roasted to retain more fruit acid, giving it a classic Yirgacheffe flavor. It is suitable for hand brewing, cold brewing, French press and other brewing methods. You can buy it at the Front Street Tmall flagship store.
Guatemala’s Front Street Washed Vivitanang Coffee Beans
The Huihuitnango Highlands are located in the western non-volcanic region with the driest climate and the highest altitude in Guatemala. Because it is located on the edge of plate boundary activities, the alpine basin has year-round changing terroir conditions, and the flavor of coffee is also rich and diverse. Like the Antigua production area, it also has rich volcanic soil, with an altitude of up to 2,000 meters. However, due to the dry hot wind blowing from Mexico in the northwest, coffee trees can grow on a slight plateau of 2,000 meters.
We all know that each country has its own coffee grade standards. Green coffee beans in Guatemala are mainly graded according to altitude. The higher the altitude, the higher the density of coffee beans and the higher the grade of green coffee beans. Most of the coffee in the Vivitnango producing area is SHB extremely hard beans, which is the highest grade of Guatemalan green beans.
This Front Street Vivienne fruit coffee beans are washed to give a cleaner tone to Guatemalan coffee. Because it has a rich and fruity aroma, we use a medium-light roast for roasting, so that we can smell the sweet aroma of citrus and nuts after grinding the coffee.
Columbia’s Front Street Washed Whelan Coffee Beans
The Huilan production area became famous after entering the 21st century. It frequently appeared on the winning lists of various green bean competitions and obtained official origin certification in 2013. The name of the Huilan production area comes from the province of Huilan, which is located in southwestern Colombia, on the side of the Andes Mountains, close to the Huilan volcano. The volcanic ash brought by the volcanic eruption adds fresh nutrients to the soil, which especially benefits the growth of coffee trees. Compared with other production areas, Huilan has year-round rain and moderate temperatures. Such planting conditions allow coffee trees to be planted even at high altitudes of more than 2,000 meters. The coffee produced at high altitudes has bright acidity and chocolate aroma.
Huilan Coffee is mainly produced by small farmers. The local farm area is usually within 1.5 hectares. Managers will plant shade trees to provide a better growing environment and quality assurance for the coffee. Whenever the coffee cherries mature, Colombians will pick the ripest and plump coffee cherries and perform post-processing at the freshest stage to ensure the freshness of the coffee in every step. The washed Front Street Huilan ration beans have a soft acidity and a suitable mellowness and sweetness. Front Street hopes to present the classic Colombian nut flavor and retain some acidity, so they choose medium-dark roasting.
Brazil's Front Street Half-Sun Cerato
Coffee gardens in Brazil do not have high altitudes like those in Africa or other South American coffee producing areas. Most of the local areas only have flat land a few hundred meters high. Brazilian growers who pursue mass production mainly adopt large-scale planting methods that are exposed to the sun. Therefore, the Brazilian coffee fruits mature quickly, the flavor does not have the rich fruit acid of high-altitude coffee, and the taste tends to be sweet and balanced. It is precisely because of the plain characteristics of Brazilian coffee that it is used in the formula of Italian coffee, which not only brings out the roasted aroma of coffee, but also makes the extracted flavor more stable.
The Cerrado production area in the northwest of Minas Gerais has a long history of coffee and mature planting and production experience. Many companies have established medium to large coffee plantations here. At an altitude of 800-1300 meters, with four distinct seasons (wet summer and dry winter), the soil here is rich in minerals, and the coffee produced has a nutty, creamy aroma, a balanced taste, and a very classic Brazilian flavor. So Front Street also added the Front Street half-sun-dried red bourbon coffee from the Cerrado production area to the ranks of Front Street’s ration beans.
Front Street Washed Tara Beads in Costa Rica
Costa Rica is located in Central and South America, connected to Panama, where Gesha is famous. At the same time, it is affected by the ocean currents and monsoons of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, forming an excellent microclimate. Combined with various terrain features, it has become a perfect production area for coffee to thrive. Although Colombia does not rank high in terms of coffee production, the many volcanoes in the country have brought very fertile mineral soil and excellent drainage to the country, so that the crops grown here receive abundant rain and nutrients, and the fruits produced are naturally of higher quality.
Talaju is located south of the country's capital, San José, and is one of the most valued coffee growing areas in the area. Dalazhu has high-altitude planting conditions of 1,200-1,700 meters, a cool climate and nutrient-rich volcanic ash soil, which gives coffee a variety of acidity and a rounded body. Coupled with the development of specialty coffee, everyone continues to make innovations and improvements in processing techniques, allowing Front Street Tarazhu Coffee to accumulate a lot of good reputation in the coffee circle.
Front Street Costa Rican ration beans are a blend of two common varieties, Caturra and Cadouai, with a natural washed finish. The flavor of Caturra is mainly fruity, with berry acidity. The flavor of Kaduai is more monotonous than that of Kaduala, with nutty tones as the dominant flavor and lacks the rich layering of Kaduala. The blend of the two varieties makes Front Street Tara Beads coffee more balanced and softer.
Indonesian front street wet planing by Lin Dongmantni
The high temperature and high humidity environment in Indonesia forced the locals to innovate a "new" processing method suitable for the local area - the wet planing method. The previous steps of the wet planing method are the same as the water washing method. Indonesians first remove the pulp from the coffee fruits and ferment them in water for 3 hours. After washing off the mucous membrane, the green coffee beans with parchment paper are dried for a short time for 2-3 days. The shelled beans with a moisture content of 20-24% are semi-soft and semi-hard, and the parchment is removed. The drying process is continued until the coffee has a moisture content of 13% and can be packaged.
Because the shelling machine uses a large amount of friction to tear apart the parchment paper layer that is close to the green beans, white or green mucus usually flows out from it at this stage. Due to long-term mucus soaking and humid environment, the green beans finally become soft, white and swollen, turning gray-green. After being stirred by friction, the green beans are more likely to be crushed or squeezed, especially at the two ends, forming small gaps, causing the beans to break. The "naked beans" without the parchment skin dries very quickly, and are also directly exposed to the moist environment and are susceptible to the growth of various bacterial species. Give Indonesian coffee a unique aroma of wood, spices and herbs. This is what we call "Mandheling flavor".
Front Street washed arabica coffee from Yunnan, China
In recent years, with the efforts of many people, the quality of Yunnan coffee has been continuously improved and has received a lot of affirmation. There are many fans of Yunnan coffee in China. For those who have never tasted Yunnan coffee, they must be curious about how it tastes. Front Street Yunnan ration beans come from the Baoshan production area with a long history of coffee cultivation.
Baoshan's frost-free warm climate throughout the year is very suitable for the growth of arabica coffee. Especially in the unique dry hot valley climate in the Lujiang Basin area, the temperature difference is not large throughout the year, but the temperature difference between day and night is large, which creates the unique sweetness of Baoshan arabica coffee. Coupled with the reasonably low rainfall, it brings great advantages to coffee fruit production. The biggest climate feature of Baoshan is relatively little precipitation and higher altitude. Therefore, the coffee beans have less pulp but high sweetness. So Front Street bought Front Street Baoshan Xiaoli as the representative of Yunnan coffee, so that everyone can taste the taste of domestic coffee.
Some merchants use novel flavor-enhancing methods to cover up the defective taste of Yunnan beans themselves, add a lot of fragrance to them, and increase the price. Front Street feels that this not only fails to truly retain the taste of Yunnan coffee, but also misleads consumers. In fact, due to limited conditions, most Yunnan coffee can only use natural processing methods, that is, washing and sun-drying. Here Front Street finally chose washing processing and medium roasting to highlight the roasted aroma of chocolate and nuts of Front Street Yunnan small grains while retaining part of the acidity, showing the aroma of nuts, herbs, brown sugar, the sweetness of melons and fruits, and the acidity of plums, with a balanced 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
