How to Choose Black Coffee? Which Black Coffee Brand is Best? Latest American Black Coffee Bean Ranking

First, let's talk about the meaning of some coffee terms. Black coffee is coffee without any additions, presenting the most original flavor of coffee beans. Common examples include Americano coffee, pour-over coffee, and cold drip coffee, all of which belong to black coffee.

Americano is one of the most popular categories in black coffee. Baristas extract espresso and dilute it with hot water to a certain ratio to create a hot Americano. Replace the hot water with an ice-water mixture, and you get a refreshing iced Americano that quenches thirst and relieves summer heat. Since Americano contains no dairy products or sugar—only water and espresso—the flavor isn't overly masked, making certain demands on both coffee bean quality and barista technique.

Differences Between Americano and Latte

When mentioning Americano, FrontStreet Coffee must discuss espresso. Using an espresso machine, evenly and finely ground coffee powder is placed into the portafilter and extracted for a short time with high-temperature water and about 9 atmospheres of pressure. The resulting liquid with crema and aromatic oils is espresso. Most common coffee categories on café menus are based on espresso, such as the aforementioned Americano, as well as latte, mocha, flat white, and others.

On the blackboard menu at FrontStreet Coffee, there aren't many types of milk coffee, but many friends love FrontStreet Coffee's lattes. Fresh milk is incorporated into espresso, reducing the bitterness of espresso while allowing you to enjoy the aroma of concentrated coffee and the sweetness of milk. Compared to guests who can accept bitterness and regularly drink black coffee, the smooth texture of latte is more easily accepted by friends trying coffee for the first time.

FrontStreet Coffee uses only one house-roasted coffee bean for espresso drinks—the FrontStreet Coffee Sunny Blend. This bean is a blend of FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia Natural Red Cherry coffee and FrontStreet Coffee's Honduras Sherry coffee beans. When FrontStreet Coffee's baristas prepare drinks, they use about 20 grams of coffee powder to extract about 40 grams of coffee liquid, which is then added to about 240g of hot water—that's a 1:6 ratio. For iced Americano, they first take a pre-chilled coffee cup, add 180g of ice cubes and 100g of room-temperature water, then pour in the espresso liquid. Here the ratio is 1:7, creating a more refreshing taste than hot Americano. FrontStreet Coffee's Americano offers whiskey notes, vanilla aromas, and sweet-tart berry flavors.

FrontStreet Coffee uses a 1:6 ratio, with 40g of espresso liquid added to 240g of milk.

When preparing hot lattes, FrontStreet Coffee uses a 1:6 ratio, adding 40 grams of espresso liquid to a pre-warmed coffee cup. Then, the espresso machine's steam wand is used to froth milk, with the milk temperature ideally controlled between 55-65°C to create fine, moderately thick milk foam. This is then evenly blended with the coffee liquid. The coffee after blending with milk presents a rich, smooth chocolate flavor. Iced latte is made by replacing the water in the aforementioned iced Americano with milk, resulting in a frozen latte.

The preparation of Americano simply involves adding water to dilute espresso, so the coffee flavor isn't interfered with, and what we mainly taste is the original flavor of the coffee. Therefore, if you don't want the coffee to have too much bitterness, the first choice should be coffee beans that aren't roasted too dark.

However, the lighter the roast, the higher the requirements for coffee bean quality. Without the roasting aroma from long roasting to cover it up, the coffee's flaws will be completely exposed. This is also why coffee roasting in the last century was dominated by dark roasts—because the quality of most coffee beans at that time wasn't very high, so the burnt bitterness from dark roasting was needed for cover.

In summary, our direction for coffee bean selection becomes clear. If you want to make hot Americano with less bitterness but not too much acidity, you can choose some medium-dark roasted coffee beans, such as those from the Brazil region. They offer low acidity and are affordable (if prices haven't increased), and the resulting Americano won't have prominent bitterness while also being suitable for milk coffee preparation.

Of course, you can also choose a specialty blend like FrontStreet Coffee's Sunflower Sunny Espresso Blend, which achieves balance through blending. This medium-roasted bean offers balanced sweet, sour, and bitter flavors with distinct layers, and can simultaneously accommodate milk coffee preparation.

If you want your Americano to have milder bitterness with fuller sweet and sour flavors, the best choice would be medium-light to medium roasted coffee beans from regions like Ethiopia, Panama, and Colombia. Coffee beans from these regions will have very prominent floral and fruit aromas, though the prices will be relatively higher.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473