Pour-over or Espresso? Find the Perfect Coffee Beans for You - Single-Origin Coffee Bean Buying Guide

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

Coffee Beans

If you don't know how to find suitable coffee beans, the best way is to visit your favorite café and ask local baristas or roasters for advice. They are knowledgeable about coffee beans and can guide you, and may even generously share some beans for you to try. On the other hand, there are abundant choices online, and you can also purchase beans online to try yourself, whether green or roasted.

FrontStreet Coffee's Taobao link - there must be coffee you'll like: https://taichancafe.taobao.com/?spm=a1z10.3-c-s.0.0.101f1b50JCIpW2

Breaking Price Myths

Although specialty coffee generally has higher prices and better quality compared to regular commercial coffee, remember that in the world of specialty coffee, the principle of "you get what you pay for" doesn't always hold true. For example, island coffees from Jamaica or Hawaii are generally more expensive not because their flavors are particularly outstanding, but due to higher production costs and lower yields.

Ask local baristas or roasters for advice. They are knowledgeable about coffee beans and can guide you.

Think Clearly About How You'll Drink It

Specialty coffee beans are typically divided into two types: those suitable for espresso and those for pour-over. So before choosing, you need to decide how you plan to drink it. Pour-over coffee beans have lighter flavors and can exhibit more complex nuances, making them ideal for slow brewing with drip methods. Beans used for espresso have deeper colors and richer flavors that can withstand the high-pressure extraction of coffee machines.

Additionally, single-origin coffees are not suitable for adding milk, as milk will destroy the delicate flavors of the coffee itself. Therefore, for making lattes or cappuccinos, it's best to choose Robusta blends or single-origin varieties with stronger, fuller flavors like Brazilian coffee.

Drink While Fresh

When buying coffee beans, pay attention to the roasting date indicated on the bag. Opinions vary on the optimal tasting period for coffee, but it's generally believed that beans need 1-4 days of resting after roasting, reaching their flavor peak between the 5th and 10th day. Within three weeks from the roasting date, it's still within the optimal tasting period. However, as the old saying goes, the best way to appreciate coffee is to taste it yourself. Some coffees may reach their optimal tasting period earlier or later, so the key lies in the quality of the beans themselves and the roasting and brewing methods.

Purchase Whole Beans

Grinding allows the flavors of beans to be released rapidly and abundantly in a short time, but it also means the optimal tasting period will be shortened and they will deteriorate quickly - usually maintaining quality for only a few hours. Ground beans will lose most of their flavor complexity within a day and become bland within a week. It's recommended to buy a grinder and grind fresh for each coffee serving. However, if you really, really don't want to go through the trouble, you'll have to buy the freshest pre-ground coffee beans available.

Store Properly

After finding the right beans, of course you need to store them properly. You could buy specialized coffee storage containers, but honestly, it's not necessary. Just keep the beans sealed, completely isolated from air, and avoid high temperatures. It's best to buy only one to two weeks' worth at a time. The ideal way is to store them in sealed glass jars or ceramic containers in a cool place. But regardless of what others suggest, never put them in the refrigerator or freezer, as the beans will absorb moisture and odors, causing them to lose flavor. This way, your double espresso will taste sour, like last Thursday's unfinished pizza.

For those of you who are just stepping into or haven't yet entered the world of coffee, are you always overwhelmed by the dazzling array of coffee beans on the market?

If you haven't yet formed a systematic understanding of coffee and suffer from choice paralysis... why not follow Xiao Le and start with the following questions to understand your needs.

Black Coffee OR Milk Coffee

Many people are accustomed to drinking coffee with milk, while the fashion trend of drinking specialty black coffee is booming. Here, you need to choose your camp!

If you drink it with milk, it's more suitable to use an espresso machine or moka pot to brew stronger coffee, and you should choose espresso beans.

For drinking black coffee, it's more suitable to use tools like pour-over drippers or siphon pots, and you should choose single-origin coffee beans. Of course, a few friends will choose to drink espresso directly without milk.

Fruity Acidity OR Rich Bitterness

Different coffees contain vastly different flavors, so how can they be summarized in a single word? However, for beginners, the most intuitive distinction might be the two different flavor tendencies of "sour" and "bitter."

Many people say "I don't like acidity in coffee" - but acidity is actually one of the important characteristics of quality coffee. People who don't like coffee acidity often haven't experienced high-quality acidity. Premium bean varieties like Yirgacheffe and Kenya have pronounced acidity. These beans are typically light to medium roasted, allowing for more delicate coffee layers and distinct, clear flavor characteristics.

If you only prefer rich, bitter flavors and firmly reject acidity, well, we won't stop you. Mandheling-type coffees, known for their mellow and low-acidity profiles, have always been popular in the market. These coffees are mostly roasted darker, making the sweet and bitter flavors more obvious with a rich, thick texture.

Of course, there are also beans with balanced flavors, maintaining a good balance between bitterness and acidity. These beans are mostly medium-roasted and are more easily accepted by most people.

Fresh OR Not Fresh

No matter what the beans, freshness is non-negotiable. Coffee beans can have a long shelf life, but the optimal tasting period is about a month, after which the flavors slowly diminish over time... So always choose coffee beans with recent roasting dates.

Pre-ground coffee is not recommended - for a demanding barista, coffee starts losing its aroma 40 seconds after grinding; even for the most forgiving barista, if ground half an hour ago, the coffee powder has already lost significant aroma. Therefore, it's recommended to buy fresh coffee beans and grind them yourself.

There's one exception - if you're in the office or traveling and can't grind fresh, you can choose relatively fresh drip bag coffee. With double-layer sealed packaging, it allows you to enjoy fragrant coffee anytime, anywhere without the trouble of carrying a lot of equipment to brew coffee.

This Origin OR That Origin

Most specialty coffees can be traced back to their origin or even specific estates. Having origin information doesn't necessarily mean the beans are good, and judging beans by producing country isn't rigorous, but origin can still provide some valuable reference information.

For example, Kenya from Africa often has distinct fruit aromas, Guatemala from South America is often mellow with a hint of wildness, Mandheling from Indonesia is typically low-acidity and mellow, and Yirgacheffe from Ethiopia often has distinct flavor characteristics.

Blend OR Single Origin

Single coffee beans generally lack the complex flavors necessary to brew a delicious cup of coffee. Many blended coffees contain three to seven different types of coffee beans. Master roasters understand the characteristics of each coffee bean and artistically blend them to create a new, desired flavor. The knowledge master roasters use to blend coffee beans is considered the highest industry secret.

In the United States, 100% Arabica coffee beans are used to create the finest blended coffees. In Italy, some Robusta coffee beans are added to blends to increase their crema, caffeine, and flavor complexity.

Whether to roast first or blend first has always been a point of debate among roasters. Generally speaking, roasting each single-origin separately before blending allows the different flavor characteristics of each coffee to be maximized, thus producing the best results.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473