Have You Tried Many Specialty Coffees? Do You Know How They're Made?

Coffee enriches our lives. This aromatic liquid—carrying notes of creaminess, sweetness, and bitterness—gives people buried in busy workdays a perfect excuse to unwind and find a moment of warmth. Drinking coffee has become an ever more popular leisure pursuit for professionals who value freedom and refined taste. The chain coffee shops and distinctive independent cafés lining our streets show that more and more people treat coffee as an integral part of life. And because instant coffee no longer meets expectations, specialty coffee—steeped in ritual and sentiment—has quickly filled that gap as a wonderful companion for leisure time. For coffee lovers, specialty coffee is a higher level of sensory and visual enjoyment: a distinctive form of coffee art.

Specialty coffee, at its most familiar, is coffee made by combining brewed coffee with frothed milk. It carries associations of romance and warmth, delighting the heart and the palate alike. So would you like to learn how to make it? It is simpler than you think—here is the process, step by step.

Step 1: Grinding the Coffee Beans

Grind the beans into powder with a coffee grinder. When grinding, keep friction heat to an absolute minimum. Grind only what you need for one brew—not more. The longer a grinder runs, the more heat it builds, which can warm the beans during grinding and drive off their aroma prematurely, dulling the flavor of the brewed coffee. If you use a manual grinder, turn the handle gently and try to avoid generating friction heat.

Step 2: Brewing the Coffee

Brewing devices fall into two broad categories: those that require heating, such as siphon pots and Royal Belgian brewers, and those that do not, like French presses and manual pour-over setups. Whichever you use, remember not to let the coffee sit too long before drinking—the temperature drops and the flavor deteriorates.

Step 3: Frothing the Milk

Pour milk into a milk frother, filling it no more than halfway—otherwise the milk may overflow as it expands. Fit the lid and plunger, then pump rapidly to press air into the milk. You needn't press all the way down; about thirty gentle pumps suffice, starting fast and slowing toward the end. Remove the plunger and you'll be left with dense milk foam. Let it rest for about a minute and a half, then shake it up and down two or three times to break the larger bubbles—perfect foam for latte art.

Step 4: Mixing and Latte Art

This is where brewed coffee meets frothed milk—the stage people call latte art. First pour the brewed coffee into the cup. Then, before the frothed milk separates back into milk and foam, pour it quickly into the coffee. Once milk, foam, and coffee reach saturation, wrist movements turn the surface into all manner of patterns.

And there you have it—a fragrant, delicious specialty coffee, lovely to enjoy at home or to serve guests with style and sophistication.

Featured Products

FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain is a coffee that stirs and awakens every sense. Its dark roast, full quality, and aromatic profile immerse you in captivating fragrance, and blended with the mellowness of milk it is ideal for specialty milk coffees. Selected from premium beans and roasted with strict care, every sip delivers a rich, full-bodied flavor with no acidity—a coffee that makes you lose track of time.

Rich and mellow in flavor, with a perfect balance of coffee's sweetness, acidity, and bitterness. Completely without harshness, it offers only moderate, well-judged acidity and a persistent fruity aftertaste.

Coffee Equipment

This hand-cranked grinder features an enhanced handle design that makes grinding easier and more effortless. Its stainless steel mechanism includes a bean hopper, greatly increasing grinding speed while reducing heat—an unexpectedly good manual coffee experience. The wooden parts are crafted from Nanyang pine, whose rustic tone and hard, durable grain give it a distinctive texture.

Say goodbye to the instant-coffee era—coffee tastes best when you grind it yourself, and a convenient, fast electric grinder is essential. This grinder offers 8 settings to adjust fineness, a washable collection cup for easy cleaning, and a sleek, streamlined body with a high-precision motor and a large cup. Listening to the beans collide as they grind, your enjoyment starts right there.

This French press has a thickened, highly transparent glass body with added heat-resistant high-borosilicate material, greatly improving heat retention and durability—no more worrying about your coffee going cold. The ultra-fine stainless steel mesh filter strains even fine grounds, and it doubles as a tea press: one pot, many uses, excellent value.

If you pursue the perfect cup, you need a good coffee machine. Its simple, elegant metal housing makes a handsome focal point in the kitchen, office, or living room. The fully sealed warming plate heats efficiently and saves energy, with automatic temperature control so coffee is ready anytime. The high-borosilicate glass carafe is heat-resistant, safe, and reliable.

This siphon pot features a phenolic handle—more refined and comfortable than solid wood, warmer and more elegant than metal. Its reinforced buffer clip protects the lower bowl from damage and helps prevent drops. The hands-on siphon brewing process, in a crystal-clear heat-resistant glass vessel that releases aroma as it brews, makes the ritual itself a pleasure.

The double-walled stainless steel milk frother shows thickened, finely polished craftsmanship. Nothing sticks and the milk flows more smoothly; the solid stainless steel sphere is made from premium, heat- and wear-resistant material, and the eco-friendly plastic lever is simple and comfortable to grip—dense milk foam made easy.

If a manual frother feels too slow, try the electric kind. Designed for light kitchen mixing, it can create milk foam as well as stir eggs, hot chocolate, sauces, protein drinks, and more. Just press the top switch—instant, effortless results.

Coffee Cups

This European-style coffee cup unites outward elegance with inner charm. Vibrant colors and a glossy finish showcase fashionable taste; exquisite craftsmanship lends it a regal, luxurious presence—a noble touch to daily life. Especially suited to refined individuals who pursue a sophisticated lifestyle, it is also a perfect choice for entertaining.

A black-and-white striped ceramic mug—no busy colors, no odd shapes, just lightweight elegance. Simple and practical, its textured material gives a comfortable grip, and its generous capacity handles coffee, tea, or water with ease.

The cleanest white base, understated yet European in its elegance, with lifelike butterfly cutouts and exquisite craftsmanship that reveal the owner's distinctive taste—irresistible, whether for afternoon tea at home, entertaining guests, or business occasions.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Five Hand-Grinder-Friendly Beans from FrontStreet

1. FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry

A classic among light roasts for its unusually high sweetness. This lot comes from the celebrated Yirgacheffe region and was among the first to champion all-red-cherry natural processing, which is why its quality runs so high. Roasted medium-light, it smells of ripe fruit; the first sip brings clear fermentation aromas and berry notes, then—once the cup cools—citrus acidity and a creamy smoothness, finishing with the juiciness of ripe grapes.

2. FrontStreet Strawberry Candy Geisha Blend

A blend of high-altitude coffees from two origins: washed Panamanian Geisha and honey-processed Costa Rican coffee. To make the most of both, FrontStreet roasts it medium, preserving the rich floral-fruity character while accenting roast-driven aromas. Brewed, it shows caramel, raisin, and dried-fruit sweetness wrapped in a sweet rose fragrance.

3. FrontStreet Musicians Series Mozart

Costa Rican coffee is famously sweet, and Mozart goes further: its raisin honey process lets the cherries ferment slowly as they dry, so beyond a Kyoho-grape-like sweetness it carries distinctive notes of pineapple and osmanthus. Roasted medium-light to foreground its aromas of raisin, rose, and fermented wine.

4. FrontStreet Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon

A FrontStreet favorite, prized above all for its sweetness—also its great versatility, working equally well as pour-over, French press, moka pot, or espresso. Queen Estate is a boutique Brazilian farm, Yellow Bourbon an outstanding variety, and the natural processing amplifies the sweetness. Roasted medium, it expresses nuts, cream, cane sugar, and a gentle fruit acidity.

5. FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan Typica

Many know FrontStreet for sharing coffee knowledge and roasting beans; few know it also grows coffee. FrontStreet has been planting Typica in Lincang, Yunnan, since 2013—choosing the land, breeding, planting, and managing, one step at a time. Typica is an Arabica variety of excellent flavor; natural-processed and roasted medium, this lot shows high notes of dried-fruit sweetness, plum, yellow sugar, and chocolate.