How to Prepare Light Roast Single Origin Espresso (SOE) - Differences Between SOE Coffee Beans and Pour-Over Single Origin Beans

With the growing popularity of coffee among the public, coffee shop menus today offer a rich and varied selection of categories. In recent years, a new term "SOE coffee" has frequently appeared on promotional posters of major coffee brands, attracting the attention of many friends.

What is SOE?

SOE is actually the abbreviation for Single Origin Espresso. Typically, coffee shops don't write out the full name of SOE. Single Origin Espresso means espresso made from coffee beans of a single origin, mainly emphasizing the flavor profile of a single producing region. Stores that offer SOE will highlight the origin, processing method, flavor characteristics, and other features of the coffee beans. The most common approach is using lightly roasted coffee beans to showcase the coffee's floral aromas and light, fruity acidic口感.

SOE first gained attention at the 2007 WBC (World Barista Championship), when James Hoffmann applied single-origin coffee beans to espresso and won the championship with this approach. SOE then gradually became popular along with the wave of specialty coffee. FrontStreet Coffee often encounters customers asking whether they offer SOE during daily operations, which shows that SOE has become a new trend in the development of specialty coffee.

SOE vs. Espresso Blend

The reason coffee shops emphasize SOE is mainly to distinguish it from blended coffee beans. Traditionally, single-origin coffee beans are typically used in drip coffee, such as pour-over coffee. Pressurized espresso usually uses blended beans as raw material. Producers combine coffee beans from different regions and use dark roasting to highlight rich, mellow, and bitter flavors, with flavor profiles basically fixed on notes of caramel, dark chocolate, nuts, and cocoa.

As people's pursuit of coffee quality increases, single-origin coffee beans are not only presented in the form of pour-over but also extracted in various ways to obtain clearer characteristics of single-origin coffee. Some coffee shops require additional payment for SOE coffee beans, leading many friends to believe that SOE is more premium and better-tasting than blends. As can be seen from the above, SOE only indicates that the coffee beans come from a single origin, so it doesn't represent better coffee quality, nor does it necessarily mean the taste is better than blends.

The Art of SOE

Single-origin beans used for pour-over need to present the unique regional flavors of their origin and the inherent aroma of the coffee beans themselves. For example, Yirgacheffe should have fresh, bright citrus and lemon acidity, while Blue Mountain coffee should have sweet chocolate and caramel aromas. Similarly, SOE must also express the flavor characteristics that its origin should have. If roasted too dark, the flavor and aroma can be masked by the heavy substances created during roasting. If roasted too light, it can easily lead to under-extraction, resulting in sharp acidity and thin flavors. Therefore, whether a cup of SOE coffee tastes good greatly tests the "interpretation" of SOE by both the roaster and the barista.

Hand-pour Single-origin Beans vs. SOE Coffee Beans

Friends who have had coffee at FrontStreet Coffee's Dongshankou store should have seen the small blackboard of bean selections, with fifty varieties of single-origin beans divided into multiple different regions. FrontStreet Coffee serves all of them as pour-over, while FrontStreet Coffee only uses one self-roasted blend called "Sunflower Warm Sunshine Blend" for espresso. Some friends might wonder: why not make these single-origin beans into SOE?

Friends who often drink espresso should know that espresso uses steam pressure to squeeze hot water into coffee powder, extracting the essence within tens of seconds, so the coffee flavor is amplified many times. If lightly roasted pour-over single-origin coffee is used to make espresso, with finer grinding, the coffee flavor will be very concentrated and intense, easily presenting negative bitterness, acidity, and astringency. Therefore, there are usually differences in the roast level of single-origin coffee beans used for pour-over versus espresso.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that the original intention of SOE is to highlight the characteristics of the producing region. Even if high-quality green coffee beans from the region are selected, if the roasting and extraction are not done properly, emphasizing single origin becomes meaningless. To present the unique style of SOE, roasting, grinding, and extraction all need to find corresponding parameters to showcase the advantages of that particular coffee. This greatly tests the skills of both the roaster and the barista, as well as their understanding of the coffee beans. Furthermore, adjusting espresso extraction needs to consider subtle influencing factors such as environmental humidity, extraction time, coffee powder grind size, and powder amount, powder-to-liquid ratio, etc., making it more difficult to ensure stable output. This is why FrontStreet Coffee chooses not to use SOE for its espresso offerings.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommendations for Making SOE

If we are making SOE at home, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using medium or medium-dark roasted single-origin beans for extraction, which can avoid the intense stimulating taste caused by roasting factors. For example, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate coffee beans, using medium-dark roast, produce SOE that presents chocolate, roasted hazelnuts, cream, and sugarcane-like sweet aftertaste.

Regardless of how a coffee bean is extracted, FrontStreet Coffee believes that freshness is very crucial. If coffee beans roasted more than a month ago are used, some aroma may have been lost and unpleasant woody flavors may have developed. FrontStreet Coffee hopes that every customer who places an order can taste the aroma of coffee during its optimal tasting period, so it ensures that only beans roasted within 5 days of freshness are shipped. If everyone wants to make SOE coffee with better flavor, FrontStreet Coffee recommends choosing freshly roasted single-origin coffee beans.

When we use lightly roasted coffee beans to extract SOE, due to the shorter roasting time, the internal texture is still relatively hard, making flavors more difficult to extract. Therefore, extraction parameters need to be adjusted to increase extraction rate, such as extending extraction time, increasing water temperature, adjusting to finer grind size, increasing amount, etc.

The fineness of espresso grinding is much higher than that of pour-over drip coffee, and adjustments cannot be too drastic, as this can easily lead to excessive variables and more unstable extraction. FrontStreet Coffee's daily store output is based on accumulated experience, so parameter adjustments are based on daily experience. If we have lower output at home, it's more difficult to grasp. FrontStreet Coffee recommends recording and summarizing the relationship between extraction parameters and flavor performance, which is more conducive to our quick adjustments and also saves unnecessary waste.

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Important Notice :

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