What are the characteristics of Starbucks Autumn Blend Coffee Beans? How to Brew Latin American Coffee Blend Autumn Blend Coffee

The Arrival of Autumn

As the leaves gradually turn yellow and cool breezes begin to blow, autumn has quietly arrived.

Every autumn brings to mind cool weather, warm-toned scenery and a hot cup of coffee. Each year, Starbucks also launches a blended coffee bean in autumn-leaf-colored packaging to welcome fall and Thanksgiving.

Introduction to Starbucks Autumn Blend

Autumn Blend coffee beans are also known as Thanksgiving Blend coffee beans. For the packaging, the designers used the orange of maple leaves, a color that blends into autumn, as the main tone, immersing the drinker in the atmosphere of autumn with colorful falling leaves and the feeling of an autumn wind brushing across maple leaves. This coffee has been available since 2008, and from 2008 to 2011 the Autumn Blend was called Thanksgiving Blend.

Starbucks hopes that when people drink this coffee they can feel the warmth of nature, and while being grateful to humanity also be grateful to nature. The company therefore created a coffee with a natural flavor and an autumn aroma, one that also pairs well with traditional Thanksgiving dishes and desserts.

To that end, Starbucks selected coffee beans from the Indonesia Sumatra region and the Guatemala region, creating a blend with a rich, sweet and smooth character and herbal aromas.

Introduction to Indonesia Sumatra Region

As a large archipelagic country, Indonesia has excellent coffee-growing environments and latitudes. Each island has its own character because of differences in terrain and climate. Sumatra is the main place in Indonesia where Arabica coffee is grown, and the Mandheling coffee that so many connoisseurs love comes from here. (Note: Mandheling is a coffee name, not a region; it generally refers to Arabica coffee grown on Sumatra Island and is named after the local Mandheling ethnic group.)

On Sumatra there are two main coffee-growing regions: one is the Aceh region in northern Sumatra, represented by FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans, and the other is the Linton region around Lake Toba (Danau Toba) in central and southern Sumatra, represented by FrontStreet Coffee's Daily Selection Linton Mandheling coffee beans.

The difference between the two is that PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans undergo at least three rounds of pure manual selection after harvest and drying, ensuring that the beans reach a screen size of 18 or above, with fewer than 3 defective beans in a 300g raw-bean sample, which places it in the highest G1 grade. PWN beans are darker green, flat and uniform in shape.

Many beans on the market that are not produced by the PWN company but are labeled Golden Mandheling can really only be called specialty Mandheling. Authentic PWN Mandheling coffee beans come with certification issued by the PWN company.

In terms of flavor, Linton-region Mandheling has a rich herbal aroma with black chocolate, caramel and a sweet aftertaste. PWN Golden Mandheling is rich and clean on entry, with intense nut and caramel aromas, chocolate notes, a persistent finish and high balance.

Introduction to Guatemala Antigua Region

Guatemala's Antigua Valley has always been the most renowned coffee region in the country. The local microclimate provides excellent conditions for growing coffee: rich volcanic soil, low humidity, abundant sunlight and strong day-night temperature differences all combine to create the unique character of Antigua-region coffee.

The active volcanoes within Guatemala bring the Antigua region fertile volcanic soil as well as unique volcanic pumice. These cooled materials from volcanic eruptions are porous and insulating, which makes them very good at retaining moisture in the soil, precisely compensating for the region's low rainfall. Combined with the shade trees common here, moisture is less easily lost and the coffee fruit develops more distinctive flavors.

Coffee grown in Guatemala has a soft fruit acidity with nut, caramel and slight smoky flavors. A representative example is FrontStreet Coffee's Antigua La Flor de Café coffee beans. Unlike beans from other parts of Antigua, Flor de Café is grown with professional and rigorous cultivation techniques provided by the famous La Minita estate, showing the bright, clean "goddess" bearing of Flor de Café.

In terms of flavor, Flor de Café coffee beans have a very pleasant and elegant floral main flavor, with a soft acidity that ends in chocolate-like notes and an overall clean, bright taste.

How to Brew Starbucks Autumn Blend, Indonesia Region, and Antigua Region Coffee Beans?

All three coffees have a relatively rich, solid taste, so FrontStreet Coffee recommends using a Kono dripper for pour-over extraction.

Compared with the common V60 dripper, the Kono dripper's ribs extend only from the filter hole to one third of the dripper wall. When the filter paper fits the dripper, air cannot pass directly through the whole wall, which slows the dripping speed of the water and creates a soaking effect, helping the coffee's flavor compounds release more fully.

For parameters, FrontStreet Coffee recommends a medium-coarse grind (raw sugar size, 70-75% passing the China No. 20 standard sieve), 88°C water and a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio paired with the KONO dripper.

For technique, FrontStreet Coffee recommends segmented extraction. Start the timer, pour 30g of water and let it bloom for 30 seconds; then make a second, small circular pour until the total weight reaches 125g; wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to half before pouring again, then continue with small circular pours until the total weight reaches 225g. After all the water has dripped through, total extraction time is about 2 minutes and 10 seconds.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Anyone who loves coffee has almost certainly tasted an Indonesian cup, and FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling is the natural place to begin. Mandheling refers to Arabica coffee from Sumatra, processed mainly by the local wet-hulled method: because the outer shell is stripped while the coffee is still half-dry and half-wet, the green beans are completely exposed to the air during drying, which gives the coffee its typical herbal and spice notes. FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling comes from the Linton region around Lake Toba; to present the classic profile it is roasted medium-dark for a low-acid, full-bodied cup with the rich aromas of caramel, dark chocolate and toast and a long, sweet finish, ideal for drinkers who like strong coffee.

At the top of the range is FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling. PWN is a trading company that buys high-quality Mandheling green beans and produces only specialty-grade Mandheling; Golden Mandheling is its flagship product. Production follows strict standards for screening out defects, covering density, screen size, shape and color, and each lot is machine-sorted once and hand-sorted to remove defective beans, ensuring the beans are complete, even, large and bright while reducing the muddy and grassy notes. Freshly roasted, the PWN Golden Mandheling shows sandalwood, herbal, spice, roasted hazelnut, caramel and dark chocolate flavors, with a clean character, a rich and sweet body and remarkable layering.

In the days before light, acidic coffee became fashionable, Mandheling was considered the richest and most aromatic coffee in the world and was often used in espresso blends. The Mamba recipe, created by Taiwanese roasters, blends Mandheling with Brazilian coffee: Mandheling's wild character meets Brazil's smooth body, and the sweet nut aroma offsets Mandheling's stronger bitterness and herbal notes. Because a Mamba blend in its best form needs a rich, golden crema, FrontStreet Coffee's Classic Blend adds a small amount of Robusta and uses a deep roast to push the dark chocolate, nut and caramel aromas to their fullest, so that even a beginner can easily make an authentic Mandheling-style espresso.