Black Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations & How to Properly Appreciate Black Coffee Beans | Price Guide

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Many fans who learn from me always ask a question: Why should one start with black coffee beans when entering the world of coffee, even using single-origin coffee tasting as a foundation? Some students believe that learning black coffee is unimportant. Let me explain here: Because coffee learning ultimately comes down to flavor, single-origin coffee presents the characteristics of its origin - meaning each origin has its unique aroma and taste. Naturally, this is also the foundation for learning espresso, as espresso beans are blended from two or more single-origin beans. For homemade espresso blends, shop owners need to have a good grasp of the flavor characteristics presented by each bean at specific roast levels, and then master the flavor of the blend at specific ratios. Therefore, if you want to improve your coffee skills, you can start with this approach: taste, taste, and taste again.

The Perfect Cup: Tasting Coffee

Like wine, coffee has many varieties. Being able to taste all kinds of coffee is extremely tempting for many people. However, to better enjoy the pleasure of coffee, it's best to establish a relatively complete, systematic, and easy-to-understand evaluation system.

How to Taste Black Coffee Beans?

First, start with your sense of smell - aroma. First, smell the aroma released from freshly ground coffee powder, then smell the coffee aroma released after brewing, and compare the differences between these two aromas. Besides the obvious differences in coffee odor, carefully consider what this aroma reminds you of - a plant you've smelled before? A flower? Trees? Earth? Let your imagination run wild.

Then, taste. The tasting methods and key points can be summarized as follows:

First, the flavors presented on the tongue, summarized as coffee's acidity, sweetness, and bitterness.

Second is mouthfeel, the so-called sensation in the mouth, summarized as body weight - that is, whether the fullness of the coffee in the mouth is noticeable.

Third is richness, which generally refers to the taste associations that coffee creates in your mouth, because coffee flavors easily remind people of citrus, lemon, fruit purée, fermentation, steamed buns, dried fruits, earth, grass, floral notes, honey aroma, and more.

Fourth is flavor. To experience coffee flavors more comprehensively, it's recommended to taste using the method of loud slurping. This method allows the coffee liquid to quickly spread across the surface of your tongue the moment it enters your mouth, making rapid and comprehensive contact with your taste buds. Because flavor is the most prominent distinguishing feature between coffees from different origins.

The final point of tasting is aftertaste, the so-called aftertaste refers to the lingering sensation that coffee brings in your mouth and throat.

Here's a little method for experiencing flavors: Pinch your nose, place coffee liquid in your mouth, experience the coffee, then instantly release your nose after swallowing. You'll discover that the flavor characteristics of coffee are released the moment you release your nose. This can be summarized as: the expression of coffee flavor plays an important role in the connection between the back of your nasal cavity and throat, and is closely related to nasal breathing. Therefore, when experiencing flavors, I recommend using this method. Let me give another vivid example: when we have a cold and eat the same meal, you'll find that before the cold, the meal tastes very fragrant, but after catching a cold, our food loses its aroma. This fragrant taste of food is similar to the coffee flavor experience.

If possible, it's best to taste several different coffees at once. The benefit of doing this is that you can deepen your perception of various coffee flavors through comparison, and you can also train your taste buds. Treat all samples with the same handling to ensure comparability between them. Settle down and enjoy the process. The more tasting experiences you have, the more sensitive your perception of coffee flavors will become.

Coffee Origin Characteristics

In small teaching sessions, coffee tasting starts with coffees from the three major coffee-growing regions. Each famous, high-quality coffee has its own unique flavor characteristics. However, coffees produced from the three major coffee-growing regions will have some common characteristics of their region. Understanding the general taste profile of coffees from each region helps with better memory when tasting coffee:

Latin American coffees are known for their clean mouthfeel, slight sweetness, and lively acidity. Some coffees have clearly sparkling acidity that far surpasses other flavor characteristics, while others have subtle but crisp accents.

Africa & Arabia coffees typically have sweet flavors reminiscent of a bowl of fresh fruit. In some coffees, the quality is very balanced, while others show tart acidity. Coffees from this region offer a wide range of flavors, from mellow to winy, from zesty to citrus - truly diverse in character.

Pacific coffees are most known for their rich and full-bodied quality, nutty and earthy flavors. Most can be described as smooth in acidity with a slightly dry finish.

Black Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted single-origin and espresso black coffee beans: Yirgacheffe coffee, Brazilian coffee, Mandheling coffee, and others are fully guaranteed in both brand and quality, suitable for brewing with various equipment. More importantly, they offer extremely high value for money - a half-pound (227g) package costs only around 80-90 yuan. Calculating based on 15g of coffee powder per cup of pour-over coffee, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each cup of single-origin coffee costing only about 6 yuan. Compared to the normal café price of 30-40 yuan per cup, this represents excellent value.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans, while also providing online store service. 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