Beginner's Guide to Coffee Beans Essentials_Entry-level Coffee Bean Recommendations_Coffee Bean Varieties Suitable for Pour-over Brewing

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Let me tell you, lattes and cappuccinos are not "a type" of coffee—they are beverages whose flavors are composed of espresso combined with milk and milk foam. The flavor of espresso, in turn, is created by our protagonist in this article—coffee beans.

In fact, coffee beans are not beans at all; they are the seeds of coffee fruits. Through factory processing, roasting, barista grinding, and brewing, they finally become the coffee we drink. Drinking wine is drinking the grapes used in winemaking; similarly, when you drink coffee, you're actually tasting the flavor of coffee beans!

The Impact of Genetics and Growing Environment

Since coffee beans are seeds, their genetics (variety) and growing environment (origin) are different. Do different coffee beans have vastly different flavors?

You've eaten grapes before, right? Red grapes, black grapes, and white jade grapes are all grapes, yet their tastes differ significantly due to their genetics (variety) and growing environment (origin). Coffee beans are the same—the influence of variety and origin on flavor is very significant.

Currently, the most common coffee varieties with commercial value are Arabica and Robusta. What's the difference between them? For a quick overview, please see the image below.

As you can see, Robusta has lower sweetness and crema than Arabica but much higher caffeine content. However, due to its high yield (several times that of Arabica), it's mostly used to produce instant coffee and canned coffee, although it's really, really not tasty... So when drinking coffee, please drink Arabica, Arabica, Arabica—important things must be said three times! With the mission of coffee evangelists, from now on we will only discuss (He) Arabica!

Varieties within Arabica

In nature, we classify organisms according to kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. "Species" should be the smallest classification unit. However, the species name Arabica actually has thousands of different subspecies, which experts call varieties. Different varieties show huge differences in flavor expression.

Reference: SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America)

Representative Varieties for FrontStreet Coffee's Entry-Level Coffee Beans

Bourbon - High sweetness, high complexity, delicate, it's the Pinot Noir of the coffee world. Coffee trees are very susceptible to disease and have low yields. After being brought to Bourbon Island by the French, it underwent slight mutations, then spread to Brazil, and subsequently traces of it can be found throughout Central America.

Typica - Very high sweetness, clean, with excellent body. After the Dutch brought it away from the Yemen region, it was taken to India and Indonesia, then to French colonies in the West Indies. During centuries of cultivation, Typica evolved into varieties such as Criollo, Arabigo, Garundang, and Blue Mountain.

Geisha - When it appeared in Panama, it was like Natalie Portman—beautifully alluring from every angle—captivating the entire audience. Compared to other coffee varieties, Geisha is on a completely different level—like Portman compared to the Kardashians. With extremely high complexity, it's filled with peach, citrus, jasmine, white camellia, and perfumed notes. Any pleasant and elegant flavors you can imagine might be found in Geisha. However, its root system is extremely shallow, it's prone to disease, making it delicate and low-yielding—difficult to care for, basically a proud and temperamental girl. But once you care for it properly, it will make you ascend to heaven! P.S. Its naming comes from its origin in Ethiopia's Geisha Mountain and has absolutely no connection to Japanese geishas!!

FrontStreet Coffee Entry-Level Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted entry-level coffee beans—including FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe Coffee, FrontStreet Coffee Panama Butterfly Coffee, and FrontStreet Coffee Indonesia Mandheling Coffee—offer full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer excellent value. A half-pound (227g) package costs only about 80-90 yuan. Calculating at 15g per pour-over coffee, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each single-origin coffee costing only about 6 yuan. Compared to café prices that often run dozens of yuan per cup, this represents exceptional value.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find various famous and lesser-known beans. They also provide online shop 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