A Beginner's Guide to Choosing Coffee Beans: How to Select the Perfect Beans for Your Taste Is Actually Simple

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FrontStreet Coffee - Beginner's Coffee Selection Guide

Today, we'll focus on how coffee beginners should choose coffee beans that suit them.

1. Roasted Coffee Beans are Fresh Food - Remember to Check the Roasting Date

Coffee beans are not necessarily better the fresher they are; they need a resting period. Generally, single-origin beans within one month of roasting are perfectly fine. For beans just roasted, opening them about a week later offers the best flavor. At this time, the roasted bitterness and barbecue flavors have mostly dissipated, and the inherent flavors of the coffee beans are fully revealed—making it the perfect time for tasting. As for espresso beans, they tend to stabilize about two weeks after roasting. Within three months, you'll find the freshness, aroma, and mouthfeel to be exceptionally full-bodied.

Coffee beans contain oils. At room temperature, according to national standards, they can be stored for 12 months without spoiling. However, this only prevents spoilage—the flavor will have largely dissipated. Especially during summer, improperly stored beans can develop rancid flavors and become undrinkable. After the expiration date, they must be discarded. Oxidized oil substances can easily produce aflatoxins, which are directly carcinogenic to humans.

Choose freshly roasted coffee beans whenever possible, ideally within one month, but no more than three months.

2. Buy Less, Use Faster

I recommend beginners pay attention to the quantity of coffee beans they purchase, as stockpiling can easily cause your beans to lose their wonderful flavors. With today's advanced logistics, if you're particular about quality, ordering once every two weeks is sufficient. When selecting beans, the packaging capacity and materials are very important. Light protection, one-way valves, environmental friendliness, and avoiding excessive packaging are professional details every coffee enthusiast should note, and also reflect civic consciousness.

Coffee beans fear oxygen, moisture, and sunlight most. After choosing the right packaging material, unopened coffee can generally be stored at room temperature. Once opened, consume as soon as possible. If you can't finish it immediately, please seal with a clip, place in a sealed bag, and refrigerate to extend flavor retention and prevent excessive loss.

Recommend ordering once every two weeks and try to avoid stockpiling.

3. Differences in Origins

Remember these coffee bean origins:

• Brazil: Full-bodied texture, reminiscent of chocolate, dried fruit, hazelnut, or almond flavors. Brazilian coffee is generally not very acidic, with a long, sweet aftertaste.
• Colombia: Balanced flavor, juice-like with a thick texture, featuring stone fruit and red berry notes, such as black cherry and blackberry.
• Honduras: Magnificent fruity character, coffee that's like juice.
• El Salvador: Rich, full-bodied and sweet.
• Guatemala: Soft, with cream, chocolate and fruit flavors.
• Kenya: Strong fruit acidity, often with passion fruit and citrus flavors. Kenyan coffee has lively flavor characteristics and higher acidity, suitable for pairing with chocolate cakes and pastries.
• Ethiopia: The birthplace of coffee, with chocolate-like thick texture, full of floral and fruit characteristics.
• Indonesia: Full-bodied, low acidity, very sweet. Reminiscent of damp soil, leather, and tobacco flavors.

Knowledge point: Arabica is one of the two very important varieties in the commercial coffee industry, with the other important variety being Robusta.

In Brief

FrontStreet Coffee is a dedicated coffee research establishment, happy to share coffee knowledge with everyone. Our unreserved sharing aims to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Every month, we hold three coffee promotion events with significant discounts because FrontStreet Coffee wants to let more friends enjoy the best coffee at the lowest prices—this has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for six years!

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473