How to Make Coffee from Coffee Beans: 8 Essential Coffee Facts You Must Know

I used to love drinking coffee; now I'm finally learning how to drink it properly.

Are you drinking coffee the right way? FrontStreet Coffee shares 8 essential coffee tips you can't afford to miss!

Tip 1 - The One-Way Degassing Valve Is Not for Smelling

Does this sound familiar? At the store or supermarket, you can't resist squeezing a bag of beans and sniffing hard through the little valve: "Wow — this coffee smells amazing!" We have to remind you: this is actually the wrong thing to do, and it can affect the flavor of the beans inside!

Tip 2 - Should Coffee Beans Be Stored in the Refrigerator?

Where do your beans go once you bring them home or open the bag? Does anyone keep them in the refrigerator? If that's you, please help your beans find a new home — quickly!

Tip 3 - Have You Ever Had Fresh Coffee? How Long Can Coffee Beans Be Stored?

Most foods carry expiration and best-by dates, and coffee beans are a food. Some major coffee companies use central roasting for mass production, with expiration dates typically running 12 to 18 months. But an expiration date and freshness are two different things. For coffee beans, what really matters is the best-by window — the fresher the beans, the better the brewed coffee tastes!

Tip 4 - Why Do I Experience Heart Palpitations or Insomnia After Drinking Coffee?

Besides individual constitution, caffeine content is closely tied to bean variety. Robusta costs less than Arabica, so most canned coffees on the market use or blend in Robusta. But if you're worried about too much caffeine, take note: Robusta may be cheaper, but it carries three times the caffeine of Arabica!

So if coffee tends to keep you up or set your heart racing, choose high-quality Arabica — and remember that over-extraction from grounds steeping too long, or grinding too fine, will also pull out excessive caffeine!

Tip 5 - How Much Coffee Should You Use to Brew One Cup?

Tip 6 - What Kind of Coffee Flavor Do You Like?

Coffee beans are the seeds of a fruit that grows on trees, and like any fruit they carry fruity acidity. A freshly roasted, properly brewed good coffee offers rich, balanced layers of acidity, sweetness, and bitterness.

Tip 7 - Brewing for Best Flavor: Roast Level and Water Temperature

When brewing, adjust the water temperature to the brewing method and the roast level. Do that, and you'll extract the best from every bean!

Tip 8 - The Freshness of Hand Grinding: Mastering Grind Size

Just follow one principle: the longer the brew time, the coarser the grounds; the shorter the brew time, the finer the grounds. That way you avoid the twin failures of coffee that tastes of nothing (too coarse) or turns bitter and over-caffeinated (too fine).

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

On the subject of varieties: coffee divides into three great species — Arabica, Robusta, and Liberica — and nearly everything on the specialty shelf is Arabica, whose complex, refined flavors shift beautifully with each origin. FrontStreet's Huakui, for instance, is an Ethiopian landrace varietal with mixed bean sizes, naturally processed to reveal creamy strawberry, mango, jackfruit, citrus, and blueberry — the same vibrant berry fragrance that won first place in that year's TOH green-bean competition.

For a washed counterpart, FrontStreet's Yirgacheffe Worka co-op lot is grade G1, Ethiopia's highest, showing elegant white florals, citrus, orange, and green tea. And if balance is what you're after, Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 is Typica — one of Arabica's founding varieties, carried from Martinique to Jamaica's Blue Mountains in the 1720s, where 200 years of adaptation gave it disease resistance and a sweet, delicate fragrance that no other region has managed to replicate.

Rounding out the Arabica hall of fame: Panama's Red Label Gesha from the famed Esmeralda Estate in Boquete, with jasmine, citrus, peach, and an oolong-sweet finish; Brazil's Fazenda Rainha Yellow Bourbon — a Bourbon mutation with 30% higher yields than Typica — offering cream, peanut, toast, and sugarcane; and Colombia's Sidra, the variety that shot to fame when world barista champion Anthony Douglas used Boundary Estate beans at the 2022 World Barista Championship, delivering florals, tropical fruit, grape, dried fruit, and passion fruit in a juice-like cup.