How to Choose Beginner Coffee Beans_Which Coffee Bean Brands Are Suitable for Beginners? Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

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Choosing Entry-Level Coffee Beans

The choice of entry-level coffee beans depends on how you plan to brew them. Here, we recommend coffee beans suitable for home brewing using simple equipment:

Because coffee is quite special and requires freshness, we suggest you don't choose major brands. Instead, purchase fresh-roasted coffee beans from local coffee roasters in your city. The advantage is: you can buy about 227 grams (half a pound), which you can finish within 20-30 days—just within the freshness period of roasted coffee beans.

Recommended Entry-Level Coffee Bean Varieties

Acidic: Yirgacheffe

Neither acidic nor bitter: Coffee beans from Central and South America, such as Guatemala and El Salvador

Bitter: Most medium-dark roasted coffee beans tend to be bitter; you can ask the shopkeeper for recommendations

How to choose coffee beans depends on what equipment you use, whether for single-origin or espresso brewing.

For single-origin coffee beans, recommended domestic brands include Shao Pai Pai, Fish Eye, and 90+ Coffee, though they are relatively expensive.

The simplest and most direct way to select beans from these brands is to ask about their coffee ratings, check the grade classification on the coffee bean packaging, and check the production date.

Green Bean Grading Rules

Since you mentioned you need entry-level options, you can choose beans with ratings above 85 points. Even beginners will find it difficult to brew poorly with high-rated beans.

In terms of varieties, you can choose classic and common options: Sumatra Mandheling, Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, Colombian or Brazilian beans. These varieties have distinctive and obvious flavors, making them easy to appreciate.

Meanwhile, coffee beans scoring below 80 points are difficult for even coffee masters to brew with distinctive flavors when used as single-origin. Generally, such beans below 80 points are more suitable for use as blend components for espresso extraction.

Truly enjoying coffee beans requires considerable preparation work: a grinder that grinds evenly, stable pour-over equipment like kettles and filter cups, or complex equipment like siphon brewers, etc.

Recommended Entry-Level Coffee Bean Brands

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted entry-level coffee beans—including Yirgacheffe Coffee, Panama Butterfly Coffee, and Indonesian Mandheling Coffee—offer full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer excellent value for money. A half-pound (227g) package costs only around 80-90 RMB. Calculating at 15g per pour-over cup, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each single-origin cup costing only about 6 RMB. 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 both famous and lesser-known beans. They also provide online shop services at 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