Cold Brew Coffee Bean Recommendations: How to Make Cold Brew with 90+ Chelan Meng _ Is Chelan Meng Natural or Honey Processed

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Flavor Profile: Guji Charmander

Charmander inherits charming fruity notes from traditional natural processing, offering a full-bodied, smooth aftertaste with lingering sweet, mouth-watering fruit acidity. Under natural processing, the flavor is clean and pure. Charmander combines the brightness of washed coffee with the gentleness of natural coffee, where complex floral notes and distinct fruit acidity complement each other beautifully.

This 90+ Charmander coffee bean is developed using the ancient natural processing methods refined through 90+ years of experience. Achieving pure flavor is challenging—it involves hand-selecting the most mature coffee cherries and meticulous constant stirring during the sun-drying process to ensure uniformity. The final result is an exceptionally transparent and pure taste with significant variation between hot and cold serving temperatures. The aromas of peach, passion fruit, floral notes, and oak barrel are captivating.

Coffee Beans for Cold Drip

Coffee beans used for making cold drip coffee typically have their own specific blend designed to extract warm, rich flavors more easily. However, many friends, including us at FrontStreet Coffee, prefer to use high-quality specialty coffee beans for cold drip extraction. This approach allows us to obtain more unique flavor characteristics and personalized taste preferences. However, since cold drip coffee uses long-duration cold water percolation extraction, I personally recommend choosing coffee beans with stronger flavors for cold drip, such as Kenya or Yirgacheffe—beans with distinct personalities. The resulting coffee will be exceptionally characterful.

Our Commonly Used Blends:

Natural Sidamo Guji [Charmander] 60% + [Kenya] 40%

[Yemen Mocha Natural] 30% + [Uganda Natural] 30%

FrontStreet Coffee [Flower Butterfly] 50g + Panama [Casanova Estate] 30g

Importance of Leveling Coffee Grounds

Cold drip coffee must have its grounds leveled. Many people don't understand why cold drip coffee also requires this step.

It's important to note that leveling coffee grounds for cold drip isn't about compacting them firmly. Instead, you first gently tap the grounds to ensure uniform structure in the filter cylinder, then use a flat tamper to lightly level the surface. Remember to press gently—just level the surface, don't compress firmly like when extracting espresso. If compressed too tightly, the cold drip coffee, unlike espresso machines that use pressure for extraction, can easily cause water pooling in the coffee bed, preventing coffee liquid from filtering through. Additionally, cold drip filters or filter papers are typically at the bottom, unlike coffee filter cups that have ventilation grooves. When coffee grounds are soaked in water, the exhaust effect is also affected, leading to uneven extraction throughout the coffee bed.

Pre-wetting

Using ice water for "pre-soaking" is actually similar to the blooming process in pour-over coffee. It can improve extraction efficiency and final consistency. In cold drip's low-temperature, filter-based extraction scenario, direct dripping might cause uneven moistening of the coffee bed—some coffee grounds could be over-extracted while others don't participate in extraction at all.

Using Filter Cloth + Filter Paper

This increases contact between water droplets and coffee grounds while ensuring even extraction.

It provides sufficient pre-infusion and ventilation space for the coffee, resulting in more complete and clean extracted flavors. We use filter cloth + filter paper. After leveling the coffee grounds, we recommend placing a filter paper on top of the coffee grounds. When water droplets fall and touch the coffee grounds, the surface gradually forms a small indentation, and water flows down along this small depression rather than spreading outward. This means the coffee grounds in the entire filter chamber won't be fully saturated, causing under-extraction. Placing a layer of filter paper prevents this situation.

We've compared water droplet shapes formed by different cold drip towers and studied how coffee grounds absorb water from different droplet shapes. We found that elongated water droplets have greater impact force, so coffee grounds get soaked downward. This indicates that surface coffee grounds are more prone to under-extraction. However, when round water droplets fall, the impact force is smaller, and coffee grounds get soaked along the surrounding area (as shown in the image below). This means round water droplets facilitate more uniform extraction of the entire cold drip coffee. This also means the drip spout shape of the cold drip tower is very important—spouts that produce round water droplets are our preferred choice.

Coffee-to-Water Ratio for Better Layering

Coffee beans : water : ice cubes ratio 1:5:5

We generally prefer a coffee-to-water ratio between 1:10 and 1:12. I personally feel that ratios in this range present flavor more appropriately—the coffee isn't too strong or too weak, but just right. If you're used to serving customers with ice cubes, you can make it slightly stronger so that after the ice melts, the coffee concentration remains at a pleasant drinking level. Of course, this can be adjusted according to personal taste.

These are the five important factors for making cold drip coffee. For the best flavor, let it rest for at least 12-24 hours. This allows the coffee's aroma to become even more exceptional.

Charmander Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

The 90+ Charmander coffee beans roasted by FrontStreet Coffee offer complete assurance in both brand and quality. More importantly, they provide exceptional value—a half-pound (227g) package costs only 90 yuan. Calculating at 15g per single-origin coffee cup, one package can make 15 cups, with each cup costing only about 6 yuan. Compared to café prices that often reach tens of yuan per cup, this represents outstanding value.

FrontStreet Coffee: A Guangzhou-based roastery with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans. They also provide online store services: https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473