Single-Origin Coffee Bean Recommendations: How Beginners Can Choose the Right Beans - Price Guide

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How to Choose Your Perfect Single-Origin Coffee Bean

If you're new to specialty coffee, how do you select a suitable single-origin coffee bean from the dazzling array of countries and regions?

Most specialty coffee shops offer 3-5 or more single-origin coffee beans for your selection. However, for those with decision paralysis or first-time single-origin coffee drinkers, choosing coffee can be truly challenging. At this point, you might want to listen to the barista's introduction. Washed beans? Natural beans or honey-processed beans? Dark roast or medium-light roast? More acidic? Sweeter? Or richer? African beans? American beans? Or Asian beans? As more questions pile up, you might just give up on the coffee and order a latte to calm your nerves.

However, you should still try more - that's what makes life interesting, isn't it? Let's first discuss the main flavor profiles of the three major coffee processing methods. (Green bean processing methods: What are natural, washed, and honey processing?)

The Three Major Coffee Processing Methods

Natural Process

Lower acidity, more pronounced sweetness, clearest mouthfeel, slightly lower cleanliness.

Washed Process

More pronounced acidity, better cleanliness, moderate mouthfeel, most consistent green bean quality.

Honey Process or Brazilian Pulped Natural (PN) Process

Moderate acidity, better sweetness than washed process, better cleanliness than natural process, moderate mouthfeel.

Among the three major processing methods, washed processing offers the highest stability, resulting in more acidic coffee. Natural process is the sweetest, while honey process falls somewhere between the two.

Coffee Bean Roast Levels

Coffee bean roast levels can generally be divided into the following 4 stages: 1. Light roast; 2. Medium roast; 3. Medium-dark roast; 4. Dark roast.

From light to medium roast, coffee beans exhibit quite distinctive flavors. Coffee roasted medium-dark and above has lower concentration and less personality, while medium-dark roasted coffee beans have a richer flavor than dark-roasted beans. Dark-roasted coffee beans have a refreshing and simple taste, also with less personality.

Coffee Bean Origins

The main origins of coffee beans include Africa, Central and South America, Asia, and island regions. African beans generally have citrus, berry, and sugarcane-like sweet and sour aromas, with common beans from Yirgacheffe and Sidamo regions. Central and South American beans have balanced flavors - Panamanian beans mostly have jasmine floral aromas, nectar-like sweetness, and bright, varied fruit acidity. Costa Rican beans have gentle sour aromas with chocolate and nutty flavors. Asian and island region beans have higher body than Central and South American and African beans, are mostly medium-dark roasted, with subtle herbal, pine, and spice notes, and low acidity. Island beans are light and mild.

Tips for Ordering Coffee

Next time you go to a coffee shop and want to try single-origin beans, you can first ask the barista: Do you have dark-roasted beans? Do you have Indonesian beans? Do you have beans with floral and fruit aromas? ...Then enjoy watching the barista's elegance while making pour-over coffee.

Recommended Single-Origin Coffee Bean Brands

FrontStreet Coffee's freshly roasted single-origin coffee beans - such as Yirgacheffe and Mandheling coffee - offer full guarantees in both brand and quality, suitable for brewing with various equipment. More importantly, they offer excellent value for money. A half-pound (227g) bag costs only around 70-90 yuan. Calculating at 200ml per cup with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, one bag can make 15 cups of specialty coffee, with each cup costing only 5-6 yuan. Compared to coffee shops selling cups for dozens of yuan, this represents excellent 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