Which Coffee Beans Are Best for Making Latte Coffee and Latte Art with Rich Crema

More and more people now enjoy starting their morning with a rich espresso to refresh their minds. The perfect combination of concentrated espresso and rich milk creates a heartwarming experience. Many customers frequently come to FrontStreet Coffee to inquire about the espresso blends we use and seek advice on how to combine coffee beans to create their desired espresso recipes. Therefore, today FrontStreet Coffee will introduce you to the methods of blending espresso beans.

Understanding Espresso Bean Blending

FrontStreet Coffee's espresso beans are typically created by blending multiple types of coffee beans together, achieving a complementary effect or highlighting specific flavors. For example, some baristas enjoy using beans from Kenya, Mandheling, Brazil, and Colombia as a base blend. Because coffee beans from different origins, when roasted to different degrees, can create unique textures and aromas in the resulting espresso. The ultimate standard for selection is whether the extracted espresso flavor suits personal preferences.

Espresso coffee places great emphasis on the degree of roasting, unlike pour-over coffee where beans of various roast levels can be adjusted through water temperature or coffee-to-water ratio to extract the flavor characteristics of single-origin coffee. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee generally doesn't use lightly roasted coffee beans because lightly roasted beans extract more acidity and less oil. When added to milk to make milk coffee or cappuccino, the coffee's primary flavor would be acidic, creating an unpleasant taste experience.

Evaluating Espresso Quality

If you use properly roasted espresso beans, you can extract a perfect cup of espresso. How can you tell if your extracted espresso is successful? FrontStreet Coffee will share a small secret: you can observe the appearance and color of the crema. You might not initially understand these professional coffee terms, so FrontStreet Coffee will explain that crema refers to the dense, light reddish-brown foam on the surface of espresso. During the roasting process, coffee beans produce large amounts of carbon dioxide, most of which dissipates during cooling, while a small amount remains inside the beans. When ground, these gases are released, which is why FrontStreet Coffee recommends making coffee as soon as possible after grinding.

First, everyone should remember a principle: even in a successful espresso, the crema should have a mirror-like sheen and a thickness of about 3mm. At FrontStreet Coffee, we typically use 20 grams of coffee powder to extract 40 milliliters of espresso, though this can vary depending on the flavor of the extracted espresso that day. FrontStreet Coffee's baristas adjust extraction time to brew a perfect espresso.

Of course, FrontStreet Coffee has another simple method to determine if extracted espresso is successful - taste it yourself! FrontStreet Coffee recommends drinking espresso within two sips to maintain the freshest flavor. Typically, Italians drink their coffee in one go, without even needing to sit down. If you can't finish your extracted espresso or don't like it yourself, then that espresso definitely won't be good. Have you noticed that when FrontStreet Coffee prepares each cup of single-origin coffee, our baristas first taste it with their own small cups? Only when the brewing is successful does it reach the customer's table. This principle applies equally to tasting espresso.

Espresso Blend Recommendations

Once everyone understands some basic concepts about espresso coffee, FrontStreet Coffee can help you select suitable espresso blends based on your desired flavor profile.

Balanced Flavor Blend

For instance, FrontStreet Coffee will first introduce a balanced espresso bean option. You can try blending dark roasted beans from Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, and Tanzania in a 3:3:2:1 ratio. This blend is particularly suitable for beginners to espresso coffee because it achieves good balance in acidity, bitterness, and aroma. It features the acidity of Tanzania's Kilimanjaro coffee beans, the rich fruity and smoky notes of Guatemala, and the full-bodied nutty and chocolate flavors of Colombia. FrontStreet Coffee combines these beans in proportion to create a very balanced espresso blend.

Intense Bitterness Blend

If you want to emphasize the bitterness of espresso, you can add some Robusta coffee beans to increase the richness of the crema. Robusta beans play a significant role in espresso blending. FrontStreet Coffee uses a 3:6:1 ratio of Colombia, Brazil, and Robusta beans to create our commercial espresso blend. This commercial blend features rich nutty and chocolate flavors combined with the full-bodied texture of Robusta beans, making it popular among coffee lovers who enjoy bitter flavors and suitable for daily café production needs.

Bright Acidity Blend

Of course, for espresso with bright acidity, African beans must be considered. For example, FrontStreet Coffee uses Tanzanian and Yirgacheffe coffee beans, adding Brazilian and Colombian beans to reduce the acidity from African beans. Using a 4:2:2:2 ratio, you can create an espresso with more pronounced acidity!

Special Fermented Flavor Blend

FrontStreet Coffee has also created a special fermented-flavored espresso blend, primarily featuring wine-like aromas. The espresso blend currently used at FrontStreet Coffee stores is exactly this blend, which we named "Sunflower Warm Sunshine." It mainly uses fermented wine-flavored Frontsteet Honduras Sherry coffee beans, combined with Frontsteet Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry coffee beans in a 7:3 ratio. This special Frontsteet Sunflower Warm Sunshine espresso blend has rich and intense wine-like aromas. When paired with milk coffee, it creates an exceptionally rich latte.

Conclusion

The above are just FrontStreet Coffee's suggestions for selecting espresso beans. To brew a perfect cup of espresso, you also need to adjust according to your espresso machine's parameters. Just as FrontStreet Coffee pays great attention to water temperature, coffee grind size, extraction time, and brewing equipment when preparing each single-origin coffee, espresso also requires attention to extraction parameters, including coffee dose, coffee-to-water ratio, total extraction time, flow rate, and more. If you want to learn more about these coffee knowledge topics, you can visit FrontStreet Coffee at Dongshankou, Guangzhou to exchange coffee knowledge with us, or follow FrontStreet Coffee's official account to get relevant coffee information.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473