What Makes Good Espresso Coffee_How to Brew Espresso Beans_Espresso Blend Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

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Understanding Espresso in Three Minutes

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1. Espresso Coffee Beans

Espresso coffee beans used for making espresso are blends of coffee beans from different countries and different estates, combined to achieve a comprehensive balance of fruit acidity, aroma, sweetness, and other flavors (coffee is not just bitter ^_^). Therefore, every coffee brand has its own formula or commonly used beans, chosen according to its positioning and cost limitations. Good espresso beans should be free from burnt bitterness, off-flavors, and should be fragrant and sweet. Poor quality ones might have heavy astringency accompanied by earthy aromas, and some may even have oily tastes.

2. Roast Level

We all know that coffee beans come from the kernels of natural coffee fruits and are technically roasted. Magic Coffee uses medium-dark roasted coffee beans to retain the natural fruit aroma. Some on the market use dark roasting, where coffee beans appear dark, natural aroma is destroyed, and burnt carbonized flavors are somewhat heavy. Choose carefully.

3. Coffee Machine

Coffee machines for making espresso are roughly divided into fully automatic and semi-automatic types. The main difference is that semi-automatic machines require baristas to manually adjust details such as coffee grind fineness, distribution uniformity, tamping pressure, extraction pressure, water temperature, etc., while fully automatic machines cannot make any adjustments. Therefore, semi-automatic machines are priced higher than fully automatic ones, the coffee quality is professional-grade, and they require high barista skills. This invisibly limits the quality of large chains, so most large chain coffee brands use fully automatic machines.

4. Milk Frothing

Milk is frothed through the coffee machine's steam wand. Baristas need to inject milk into the steam to generate numerous bubbles, and quickly break these bubbles into a fine texture after they form. Under the effect of steam, milk rapidly heats up, natural vanilla sweetness begins to appear around 60 degrees, and nutritional content starts to be lost above 70 degrees. Therefore, baristas need to break all bubbles and integrate them into the liquid within just a few seconds. A good milk foam should have no visible bubbles on the surface, have a glossy appearance when shaken, and be as dense as silk.

5. The Finished Coffee Product

When a latte is presented before you, first, the latte art should be clear and symmetrical, the surface milk foam should be dense without large bubbles, the temperature should be suitable for immediate drinking, the foam thickness should not exceed 1 centimeter with minimal temperature contrast, and it should be silky, sweet, not bitter or astringent, and free from off-flavors.

Espresso Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee, a coffee roasting brand located at Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, offers freshly roasted espresso beans with full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, the value for money is extremely high. Taking their commercial product recommendation - the Commercial Blend Coffee Beans - as an example, one package is one pound (454 grams) and costs only about 60 yuan. Calculating based on 10 grams of coffee powder per espresso shot, one package can make 45 cups of coffee, with each cup costing less than 1.5 yuan. Even using double shots for each espresso production, with 20 grams of powder per serving, the price of a double espresso does not exceed 3 yuan. Compared to certain well-known brands that sell packages for over a hundred yuan, this is truly a conscientious recommendation.

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 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