Are Arabica Coffee Beans Suitable for Making Espresso, Americano, Latte, and Cold Brew?

For many coffee enthusiasts, coffee has long been integrated into their lives, becoming an important part of their existence, and drinking coffee is a completely normal activity. But have you ever learned about coffee-related knowledge? In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will discuss Arabica coffee, the most commonly consumed type.

Why Do Coffee Shops Use Arabica Coffee?

As the two most common varieties on the market, Arabica and Robusta differ significantly - Arabica belongs to the small-bean variety, while Robusta belongs to the medium-bean variety. Compared to Robusta coffee beans with 22 chromosomes, Arabica has 44 chromosomes, or 22 pairs. This doubled chromosome count not only gives Arabica coffee superior aroma but also brings rich and unique sweet and sour flavors. Therefore, Arabica coffee tastes better than Robusta.

To express diverse flavors, Arabica needs to be grown at high altitudes between 800-2200 meters without frost. The higher altitude creates significant temperature differences, which slows down the maturation of coffee cherries, allowing for better accumulation of flavor substances and more full aroma development. The microclimates of various coffee-growing regions provide diverse growing conditions for Arabica, forming unique flavor profiles. At the same time, higher altitudes make coffee more susceptible to pests and climate effects. Generally, coffee planted at higher altitudes yields fewer fruits and matures more slowly. High-quality Arabica coffee requires more manual management and harvesting, resulting in higher production costs.

The bitterness we taste when drinking coffee mainly comes from chlorogenic acid. Robusta has higher content of caffeine, amino acids, and chlorogenic acid. Therefore, Robusta naturally lacks the elegant and floating aroma unique to Arabica beans, replaced instead by a mellower, deeper bitterness. Arabica's caffeine content is low, about 0.9% to 1.2%. Its fat content is 60% higher than Robusta coffee. Compared to the strong-tasting Robusta beans, Arabica has lower caffeine content and its sugar content is twice that of Robusta beans, making Arabica coffee taste smooth, sweet, with rich layered acidic aromas, thus becoming the first choice for coffee drinkers.

With the continuous promotion of specialty coffee culture, everyone has more or less requirements for coffee's taste, mouthfeel, and quality. Therefore, only high-quality Arabica beans better meet the current specialty coffee market. Many pour-over single-origin coffees on FrontStreet Coffee's bean menu belong to the Arabica variety, showing that compared to Robusta, people prefer the pure flavors of Arabica.

What Are the Characteristics of the Arabica Variety?

Arabica coffee originates from the Ethiopian plateau in Africa. Initially, Arabica coffee was mainly used as medicine for consumption. Later, people developed the habit of roasting and drinking it. In the 16th century, Arabs spread it worldwide through trade, gradually developing it into today's popular beverage. Many of the specialty coffee beans we know belong to the Arabica variety, such as Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, Panamanian Geisha coffee, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee, and so on.

Friends who often drink coffee should know that coffee is a tropical plant that needs to be grown in warm places. The main growing areas of coffee trees are distributed between 25° south latitude and 25° north latitude, centered around the equator. This area is called the "Coffee Belt." For example, Brazil and Colombia in Central and South America, Ethiopia and Kenya in Africa, Sumatra in Indonesia and Yunnan in China in Asia... are all high-quality coffee-producing regions located in the Coffee Belt.

The Arabica variety is a relatively large shrub with elliptical, dark green leaves, and its fruits are also elliptical, generally containing two slightly flattened beans. The beans are rounded, with a long oval front face, narrow and curved S-shaped cracks in the middle, and a relatively flat arc on the back. There are two Arabica coffee trees planted next to FrontStreet Coffee's Dongshankou store. When you drink coffee, you might want to take a look.

Arabica Coffee Bean Recommendations

On FrontStreet Coffee's bean shelf, there is a cost-effective daily bean series, carefully selecting 7 excellent classic coffee-producing regions, covering multiple highly representative regions, varieties, and natural processing methods. So-called daily beans, as the name suggests, are varieties that can be consumed daily without burden, with both price and flavor being very approachable. FrontStreet Coffee has selected multiple "representative faces" to let everyone recognize the basic flavors of major producing regions. These include Ethiopian washed Yirgacheffe, Guatemalan washed Huehuetenango, Colombian washed Huilan, Brazilian natural pulped Cerrado, Costa Rican washed Tarrazú, Indonesian wet-hulled Mandheling, and Chinese Yunnan washed Baoshan.

Each daily bean is suitable for extraction methods such as pour-over, cold brew, French press, etc. If you want to taste the most original aroma of coffee, FrontStreet Coffee suggests that black coffee form is best. Regardless of the extraction method used, FrontStreet Coffee believes that the freshness of coffee beans is very important. If the roasting date exceeds two months, the coffee's aroma has likely dissipated, and even the most excellent extraction techniques can hardly restore the cup's aroma. To let everyone experience the best tasting period of coffee, FrontStreet Coffee only ships beans freshly roasted within 5 days, so you can start brewing when you receive them.

If you want to use Arabica coffee to make rich and mellow espresso, FrontStreet Coffee recommends choosing espresso-specific blended coffee beans. Since espresso is extracted under fine grinding, high water temperature, and high pressure, the concentrated coffee gathers multiple flavors, and various flavor compounds impact our tongues exponentially. If we use lightly roasted single-origin coffee beans for extraction, the taste might be too strong and mask the coffee's aroma. As an agricultural product, coffee varies with climate, soil, and other changes. Even from the same place, each batch of coffee beans will have different flavors. Blended coffee beans use the method of complementing strengths and weaknesses to ensure that each batch of coffee beans can present balanced and stable aroma and taste.

FrontStreet Coffee recommends FrontStreet Coffee's own roasted "Sunflower Warmth Blend Coffee Beans," which combines Ethiopian natural red cherry coffee beans (30%) + Honduran sherry barrel-aged coffee beans (70%). When made into espresso, it has a very rich dark chocolate flavor with strong caramel notes. The aroma released after swallowing is endlessly memorable. Whether it's Americano diluted with water or latte enhanced with milk, both present rich aroma and taste.

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

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Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

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