Freshly Roasted Coffee Beans: Is Technique or Green Bean Quality More Important_Freshly Roasted Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

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The Journey of Coffee Understanding

The process of how people come to understand coffee is quite fascinating. Most people still remain at the stage of "coffee with sugar and milk," adding sugar and milk for one direct reason: bitterness. Coffee is bitter. The next level of understanding is when people notice that baristas can create beautiful latte art... (Inner monologue: Being handsome has little to do with whether coffee tastes good). Further along, they discover that how well a barista operates or brews determines the quality of the coffee. At an even deeper level, coffee enthusiasts realize that the quality of coffee bean roasting greatly determines coffee quality... At this point, this person can basically be defined as a coffee-level consumer, someone with a genuine passion for coffee or a professional in the industry.

Green Beans vs. Roasting: What Determines Quality?

Which determines the quality of freshly roasted coffee beans more: the level of roasting or the quality of green beans? How should we answer this?

Understanding Green Beans

Let's first briefly understand what green beans are to avoid misunderstandings.

In the industry, what everyone commonly calls green beans refers to "the nucleus of the coffee fruit, the inner kernel within the nucleus (usually with left and right halves)."

After processing (sun-dried/washed/semi-washed...), through the fermentation process of the fruit, these become dry coffee beans with a moisture content of 10-12%.

Green beans processed at the estate are mostly in grades 1-5 or 1-4 (with or without the mucilage layer), and there are also whole dried cherries at grade 1-7. What reaches the roaster's hands is usually what's widely known as "green beans" at grades 1-3.

The Tea Analogy

If we use "tea" to explain "coffee," it's easier for Chinese people to accept, because Chinese people have a better understanding of tea, making comparisons easier to comprehend. Let me put it this way: no matter how much a tea master ferments or rolls Da Hong Pao tea, they cannot create Da Hong Pao from something else. Tie Guan Yin is not just any oolong, Longjing is Longjing, Pu'er is Pu'er, and taking Pu'er tea to Wuyi Mountain won't change what it is. Everyone might think I'm stating the obvious, and that's exactly right! Because coffee is the same...

So African green coffee beans taken to Brazil won't become Brazilian coffee, and Yunnan green coffee beans taken to Panama won't become Geisha.

Green coffee beans from various coffee-producing regions around the world are like predetermined maximum scores. For example, if Hawaiian Kona has a maximum score of 90 points, then no matter how good it is, it cannot exceed 90 points. This already determines its quality level and lineage.

The Role of the Roaster

A qualified roaster, like a tea master, can understand through the green bean's origin, estate, and variety, and through sight, touch, and smell, how the bean should be roasted to best present the inherent flavors of the bean itself.

Using the scoring analogy from above, this means achieving as close to the full 90 points as possible. (And some beans might have a maximum of 70 points, others might reach 100 points).

So why do people say that roasters can roast their own unique characteristics? This is certainly possible. Just like Pu'er tea doesn't all taste the same - even without considering vintage, people will talk about which hall produced it. Wuyi Mountain tea also doesn't all taste the same. So roasters can express their own style through different roasting curves and machine expertise during the roasting process.

However, 90-point beans can also be roasted down to 10 points. As shown in the image above, roasted coffee can have defects - it might be over-roasted and produce bad flavors; or before roasting, there might not have been proper inspection for defective beans, moldy beans, or foreign objects other than beans... all of which can greatly reduce the flavor of the final roasted product, and in severe cases, ruin an entire batch.

And 90-point beans, no matter how skilled the roaster, cannot exceed the flavors and characteristics inherent in the green beans themselves.

Fresh Roasted Coffee Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted single-origin fresh coffee beans - such as Yirgacheffe coffee, Kenya AA coffee, Panama Geisha coffee, and others - offer full guarantees 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 RMB. Calculating at 15g per pour-over coffee, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each single-origin coffee costing only about 6 RMB. Compared to café prices that often reach dozens of RMB 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, 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