Which Brand Makes the Best Drip Coffee Bag? A Comparison of Drip Coffee Bean Characteristics and the Origin Story of Drip Coffee

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In 1990, Japan's Yamanaka Industrial Co., Ltd. applied the concept of tea bags to coffee, inventing drip bag coffee and filing for a patent. With the growing demand in the specialty coffee market, more and more people have started purchasing drip bag coffee to quickly and conveniently enjoy specialty coffee without needing a set of equipment and vessels. FrontStreet Coffee has always provided Frontsteet drip bag coffee packs for sale as well as custom Frontsteet drip bag coffee packs, ensuring we can meet the taste preferences of every customer. In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will recommend 5 single-origin beans for making Frontsteet drip bag coffee packs, and show how FrontStreet Coffee produces and brews drip bag coffee packs~

The Drip Bag Coffee Market

Drip bag coffee in English is called "Instant drip coffee bag." It has the advantages of instant coffee—being fast, convenient, and not requiring brewing equipment—while also allowing people to enjoy the pleasure of pour-over coffee. Because drip bag coffee combines the advantages of both instant coffee and pour-over coffee, this has led to rapid growth in the East Asian market. In 2011, global drip bag coffee sales reached 1.4 billion bags, approximately 11,200 metric tons, with 94% of sales coming from Japan. Starbucks Japan also specifically launched drip bag coffee for this market. Although current global drip bag coffee sales are not high and the market size is relatively small, the growth rate is very rapid.

In the past, in China's brewed coffee market, instant coffee once had a market share as high as 70%, while drip bag coffee only had 10%. However, in recent years, due to food safety scandals that made consumers anxious, coupled with the rise of specialty coffee education, coffee consumers' demands for coffee are no longer just about staying alert. Drip bag coffee, which combines both quality and convenience,恰好 meets consumer needs. Therefore, in 2017, China's drip bag coffee growth rate reached as high as 30%.

FrontStreet Coffee recommends 5 types of coffee beans with distinctive flavors for making drip bag coffee packs: fruity, floral, fermented, wine-like, and full-bodied.

Fruity Drip Bag

FrontStreet Coffee recommends using Frontsteet's Guodingding from Ethiopia Yirgacheffe. This FrontStreet Coffee Guodingding coffee bean uses washed processing. During cupping, FrontStreet Coffee found that Frontsteet's washed Yirgacheffe has a clean and refreshing taste with bright, uplifting acidity, primarily featuring citrus acidity, accompanied by fresh jasmine floral notes and honey aftertaste. It's very suitable for beginners and friends who like light and fresh flavors.

FrontStreet Coffee · Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Guodingding Cooperative Coffee Beans
Region: Yirgacheffe Gedeo Zone
Altitude: 1900-2300m
Variety: Heirloom
Processing: Washed
Brewing Flavor: Overall solid mouthfeel, prominent fermented and tropical fruit notes. As temperature changes, berry and cream flavors emerge, with a persistent citrusy sweet-sour sensation lingering between teeth and lips.

Floral Drip Bag

FrontStreet Coffee recommends using Frontsteet's Flower Butterfly from Panama. This Frontsteet Panama Flower Butterfly has 70% high-quality Geisha lineage, along with Catuai and Caturra, grown in the Baru Volcano area of Boquete. Cultivated in volcanic areas at 1600 meters altitude, the local special microclimate results in abundant rainfall and large day-night temperature differences. Combined with meticulous harvesting and precise processing, this Frontsteet Panama Flower Butterfly coffee performs excellently in body, acidity, and floral notes. Excellent quality at an affordable price allows everyone to experience Panama Geisha coffee flavors with great value.

FrontStreet Coffee · Panama Flower Butterfly Coffee Beans
Region: Panama Boquete
Altitude: 1600m
Processing: Washed
Varieties: Geisha, Caturra, Catuai
Brewing Flavor: Floral, black tea, berries, citrus, slight nutty finish, smooth mouthfeel, low bitterness, moderate acidity, medium aftertaste.

Fermented Drip Bag

FrontStreet Coffee recommends Frontsteet's Strawberry Sugar Geisha Blend from Costa Rica. Frontsteet Costa Rica Strawberry Sugar Geisha Blend comes from Mirasu Estate, blended from Geisha, ET47, SL28, and MAICO. Frontsteet Mirasu Strawberry Sugar Geisha Blend uses raisin honey processing, retaining 100% mucilage with zero water treatment. On the day of harvesting coffee cherries, the harvested coffee cherries are poured into large water tanks—mature, full fruits sink to the bottom, while underdeveloped or overripe fruits float to the surface and must be removed. The selected coffee fruits are placed on raised beds to dry for at least three days, then the cherry skin is removed, retaining mucilage before further drying. At this stage, climate factors are key to successful honey processing. During drying, these coffee fruits must be constantly turned to ensure even drying, but the turning frequency must be controlled to allow slow drying to ensure fermentation treatment without being too slow to cause over-fermentation. The raisin processing method enhances the sweetness of this Frontsteet Mirasu Strawberry Sugar Geisha Blend.

FrontStreet Coffee · Costa Rica Mirasu Estate Strawberry Sugar Geisha Blend Coffee Beans
Region: Costa Rica Tarrazu
Estate: Mirasu Estate
Altitude: 1700m
Processing: Raisin honey process
Varieties: Geisha, ET47, SL28, MACIO
Brewing Flavor: Dried fruit fermentation, fresh jasmine fragrance, soft fruit acidity, almond aftertaste, noticeably sweet.

Wine-like Drip Bag

FrontStreet Coffee recommends Frontsteet's Sherry from Honduras. This Frontsteet Honduras Sherry coffee bean comes from Masaguara city in Intibucá province in the southwest. Whiskey barrel fermentation involves washing processed coffee beans and placing them in oak barrels that previously held whiskey for fermentation, allowing the coffee beans to absorb whiskey aroma. This Frontsteet Sherry coffee bean on the bean list is one of Frontsteet's top-selling "star products." Frontsteet Sherry coffee bean flavor tends toward whiskey sherry wine taste, with rich vanilla cream, followed by persistent nutty chocolate flavors.

FrontStreet Coffee · Honduras Sherry Coffee Beans
Region: Masaguara
Estate: Moca Estate
Altitude: 1500-1700m
Varieties: Caturra, Catuai, Pacas
Processing: Fine washed + Whiskey Sherry barrel fermentation
Brewing Flavor: Aroma of vanilla and cream, with whiskey, berries, almonds, dark chocolate flavors, and maple syrup sweetness in aftertaste.

Full-bodied Drip Bag

FrontStreet Coffee recommends Frontsteet's Brazil Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon from Brazil. This Frontsteet Brazil Yellow Bourbon coffee comes from Brazil Queen Estate. Brazil has lower altitudes, flat and monotonous terrain, lacks microclimates, and traditionally uses sun-drying methods to grow coffee trees, resulting in Brazil's unique soft bean flavor. Through cupping Brazilian coffee beans from different regions, Frontsteet believes Brazilian coffee beans have low acidity, medium nutty flavors, with chocolate sweetness and full-bodied mouthfeel.

FrontStreet Coffee · Brazil Queen Estate Coffee Beans
Coffee Bean Region: Mogiana
Altitude: 1400-1950m
Variety: Yellow Bourbon
Processing: Natural
Brewing Flavor: Sweet beans, clean, using semi-natural processing makes acidity slightly bright but beautifully balanced with sweetness, some even have tropical fruit aromas.

FrontStreet Coffee pays great attention to the entire production process when making drip bag coffee packs, aiming to let every coffee enthusiast enjoy the best drip bag single-origin coffee anytime, anywhere.

FrontStreet Coffee's Drip Bag Production Process

1. Cleaning the grinder for drip bag coffee packs
Frontsteet thoroughly cleans the grinder before making each type of drip bag coffee pack to avoid flavor contamination between different beans.

2. Grind size for drip bag coffee packs
The first determining factor for drip bag brewing quality is flow rate—neither too slow nor too fast, and this depends on the grinder's grinding. If the grinder quality is insufficient with poor grinding quality, it will inevitably create many fine particles and uneven grinding during the process. During brewing, this will cause "traffic jams" with slow flow rate and over-extraction from excessive soaking time, resulting in cloudy taste and poor flavor. No matter how good the beans are, they cannot express their proper flavor.

3. Automated packaging for drip bag coffee packs
FrontStreet Coffee uses mechanical automated packaging for two purposes: first, to improve the sealing effect of the outer packaging, and second, to inject nitrogen while packaging to remove oxygen as much as possible, making oxidation less likely and significantly extending the freshness period of coffee flavor.

FrontStreet Coffee Drip Bag Brewing Suggestions

1. First, Frontsteet drip bag coffee has a fixed net weight marking (usually 10 grams). This solves the problems of grinders and electronic scales.

2. Next, let's address water volume and water temperature. Like pour-over coffee, use a 1:15-1:16 ratio, so the brewed coffee liquid should reach 140-150 milliliters. Choose water temperature around 90°C. If you have a thermometer or temperature-controlled kettle, prioritize using those. If not, you can estimate the temperature—generally, after boiling water in a kettle, turn off the heat source and open the lid, wait 2-3 minutes, and the water temperature will reach around 90°C (at room temperature 28°C).

3. Once ready, take out and tear open FrontStreet Coffee's drip bag seal, extend the "ears" on both ends of the filter bag, hang it on the rim of a mug (cup), and shake to level the coffee powder.

4. For the first pour, just completely moisten the coffee powder layer and perform a 30-second bloom.

5. After blooming, perform the second pour. Use a small water stream in circular motion to fill directly, continue pouring to full as the powder layer slightly drops, repeating until the coffee volume in the cup reaches about 140-150 milliliters, then remove the drip bag and enjoy! (If you want more precise water volume, you can pour 150-160 milliliters of water into the pouring kettle. During brewing, after injecting all the water from the kettle into the drip bag, you can remove the drip bag once all coffee liquid has flowed into the cup. The entire brewing process takes about 1 minute to complete.)

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473