Should Espresso and Americano Coffee Beans Be Dark Roasted? What's the Ideal Roast Level for Espresso Coffee Beans

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What's Good About Nearly Carbonized Coffee Beans?

It turns out this type of bean is a blend. Artisanal roasters mix various uniquely flavored Robusta beans in different proportions, of course also including some Arabica beans as the base. The goal is to create the shop's specialty - rich, thick, and full-bodied espresso extraction.

The intoxicating part is the rich coffee crema. Careful analysis reveals that crema comes from the coffee's own oils. However, these coffee oils are the result of roasting raw coffee beans at high temperatures until after the dense second crack.

Typically, such coffee beans, when taken out of the roaster to cool, have a deep color but haven't yet released oils. Due to the continuous release of heat from the coffee beans themselves, you'll gradually see a sheen of oil appear on the surface as they cool. Coffee beans like this have strong aroma release and intense, robust fragrance that's hard not to be attracted to. Only dark-roasted coffee beans can force out the coffee oils, but this also shortens their freshness and shelf life accordingly.

Espresso beans have an optimal tasting period of about five to seven days after roasting. After the seventh day or up to ten days, the oils slowly transform, and an unpleasant rancid smell gradually emerges. At this time, when extracted with an espresso machine at nine pounds of steam pressure, crema will occupy 80% of the extraction cup. The flavor when drunk straight is unforgettable. If you add coffee brown sugar to enhance the flavor, it's another taste experience altogether.

I suggest you remember to drink plenty of water when drinking this coffee to dilute the extraction liquid in your stomach, and it's not recommended to drink this coffee on an empty stomach.

Espresso Beans

Many people love lattes, and I'm no exception. Before I came into contact with specialty coffee, I always only loved drinking lattes and only knew that lattes were espresso plus milk, but I didn't know that espresso is made from several types of coffee beans blended together. The key to a good latte is - the espresso bean blend formula. How to blend a good espresso involves considerable expertise!

Why Blend Beans?

1. By using different beans and different roast degrees according to different ratios, create a distinctive single-origin coffee specialty.
2. Balance costs.
3. Create espresso blends.

Blending Theory:

I roughly divide coffee beans into 3 categories: white, gray, and black. White beans mainly provide aroma and acidity in the front taste, gray beans mainly provide sweet base notes, and black beans mainly provide bitterness and aftertaste in the finish. Then configure according to different bean characteristics and suitable roast levels. The suitable ratio is 3:5:2. Some beans might be in the white-gray or gray-black range, requiring experimentation to find the best classification position for the most perfect match.

White (front aroma and acidity): Light roast - Kenya, Guatemala, Yirgacheffe, etc.

Gray (middle body and sweetness): Medium-dark roast - Brazil, Costa Rica honey-processed, El Salvador, etc.

Black (back bitterness and aftertaste): Dark roast - Mandheling, Kenya, Guatemala, etc.

Gray-black - Colombia (medium-dark roast) - trending toward bitter aftertaste.

Espresso blends mainly emphasize sweetness, and sweetness pairs well with milk. A little white + more gray + middle black can try Guatemala + Brazil + Kenya.

You can first classify the coffee beans by front aroma, middle body, or back aftertaste sweetness, then match them one by one for tasting.

1. FrontStreet Coffee Kenya AA (medium roast) + FrontStreet Coffee Mandheling G1 (medium-dark) + FrontStreet Coffee Guatemala Antigua-Flora (very light roast) - has sweetness, body, and light floral aroma, good texture, delicious. Some people反映 the coffee flavor isn't strong enough.
2. FrontStreet Coffee Kenya AA (medium roast) + FrontStreet Coffee Mandheling G1 (medium-dark) + FrontStreet Coffee Ethiopia Yirgacheffe (washed) (light roast) - enough sweetness, even richer body, light floral and fruity acidity, delicious. Coffee flavor still not enough.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473