Italian Coffee Bean Recipe Formula: How to Blend Fresh Coffee Beans for Espresso

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Choosing Espresso Coffee Beans

When selecting espresso coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee prioritizes freshness first, followed by flavor, body, balance between acidity and bitterness, and other qualities. FrontStreet Coffee currently uses their own roasted Frontsteet Sunflower Warm Sun Espresso Blend Coffee Beans, designed to enhance the richness and harmony of coffee flavors. What are blended coffee beans? Let's explore FrontStreet Coffee's four currently available espresso blends and understand the differences between blended coffee beans.

How to Judge Coffee Bean Freshness

Before choosing any espresso blend, how do we determine the freshness of coffee beans?

First, choose products from professional coffee roasters with clearly marked roasting dates (not expiration dates or shelf life), reputable brands, and an emphasis on fresh roasting. Additionally, quality coffee packaging bags typically feature a "one-way degassing valve" (a small button-like hole on the coffee bag) that allows coffee beans to release naturally produced carbon dioxide.

Point the one-way degassing valve toward your nose, gently squeeze the coffee bag, and smell the expelled gas. If it has a rich, enticing coffee aroma, the freshness is fine. Conversely, if it lacks richness or has a rancid oil smell, this indicates the coffee has deteriorated and lost its flavor, and you should avoid purchasing it. Every bag of coffee beans sold by FrontStreet Coffee uses packaging with one-way degassing valves, ensuring every bag reaches coffee enthusiasts in the freshest state possible. FrontStreet Coffee emphasizes fresh roasting because over time, coffee loses most of its aroma after 50 days of roasting. Some might ask, is fresher always better? Not necessarily—the aroma isn't fully stable in the first two days after roasting.

For espresso coffee beans, due to medium-dark roasting, the beans contain large amounts of carbon dioxide after roasting. FrontStreet Coffee recommends keeping them unopened in their original packaging in a cool, moisture-free place, allowing the beans to rest (the process of releasing carbon dioxide) for 7 days from the roasting date before brewing.

What Are Blended Coffee Beans?

Blended coffee, also known as mixed coffee or espresso beans, involves combining various single-origin coffee beans to fully showcase the strengths of each individual bean. Blend beans are composed of coffee beans from different origins to create a more balanced flavor profile. For example, if one coffee bean is smooth but lacks aroma, another bean with rich aroma can be added to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses, either balancing or enhancing flavors to create a new, richer taste experience. Sometimes beans are mixed before roasting (called "green blending"), and sometimes they're mixed after roasting (called "roasted blending").

Whether pre-mixing green beans or mixing after individual roasting, both methods are acceptable depending on the characteristics of the coffee in the blend. Roasted blending allows for different degrees of roasting for each bean, enabling each component to perform at its best.

FrontStreet Coffee reminds us that before blending beans, one must understand the flavor profiles of different coffee varieties from around the world. Beans have different characteristics based on their origin, which requires the roaster to have clear knowledge of multiple regional coffee bean characteristics to adjust roasting curves accordingly. Different coffee beans have distinct personalities due to different varieties and origins, with subtle differences in acidity, bitterness, sweetness, aroma, body, and other flavor aspects. Single-origin coffee beans often emphasize the unique characteristics of a particular coffee type.

Mixing different coffee beans serves several purposes:

1. Stable Flavor Profile

Since coffee beans are agricultural products, even the same type of coffee bean will have different flavors each year. Therefore, mixing several types of coffee beans solves this problem well, maintaining basically consistent flavors year after year.

2. Balanced Flavor

Espresso machines have a characteristic of amplifying the most prominent flavor characteristic of coffee beans, so we almost never use single-origin coffee for making Espresso. Otherwise, if that coffee bean is more bitter, the resulting Espresso will be exceptionally bitter; if it's more acidic, it will be very acidic. Therefore, we need to balance various flavors through blending.

FrontStreet Coffee currently has four espresso blends to meet the different needs of coffee industry professionals and coffee enthusiasts.

1. Frontsteet Sunflower Warm Sun Espresso Beans
Frontsteet Honduras Sherry : Frontsteet Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry, ratio 7:3, roasted blend.

Flavor Profile: Noticeable fruit acidity with subtle berry aromas lingering, rich wine and chocolate flavors, comfortable sweet aftertaste.

The Frontsteet Honduras Sherry coffee beans bring rich whiskey aroma and chocolate-filled liqueur aftertaste to this coffee, with intense fragrance. The Frontsteet Natural Red Cherry brings fermentation sense and berry aroma to this coffee, with a smooth entry. This Frontsteet Warm Sun blend coffee is half-pound packaged, suitable for coffee shops requiring particularly rich espresso flavors and higher bean quality, or espresso enthusiasts with smaller usage needs.

2. Frontsteet Premium Blend
Colombia and Brazil in 3:7 ratio, roasted blend.

Flavor Profile: Comfortable sweet bitterness, extremely smooth entry, with light grassy fragrance, fresh aroma with slight bitterness, sweet and smooth, with a pleasant aftertaste.

Coffee beans from Colombia's Huila region have delightful acidity, mellow aroma, moderate acidity, and rich sweetness that is intriguing. Coffee beans from Brazil's Cerrado region have comfortable sweet bitterness with extremely smooth entry. This premium blend coffee is suitable for various specialty coffee shops, meeting their daily production needs.

3. FrontStreet Coffee Commercial Blend
Colombia : Brazil : Robusta, ratio 3:6:1, green blend.

Flavor Profile: Classic flavor with caramel sweetness, nutty and cocoa-like, dark chocolate flavors, balanced sweet and sour, with slight sweet bitterness and lasting aftertaste.

Coffee beans from Colombia's Huila region have delightful acidity, mellow aroma, moderate acidity, and rich sweetness that is intriguing. Coffee beans from Brazil's Cerrado region have comfortable sweet bitterness with extremely smooth entry. Robusta provides rich crema. This commercial blend coffee is suitable for coffee shops and beverage stores of various sizes, meeting daily business needs.

4. FrontStreet Coffee Basic Blend
Yunnan AA : Brazil; ratio 3:7, roasted blend.

Flavor Profile: With soft fruit acidity, caramel sweetness, nutty and dark chocolate flavors, smooth and viscous, but relatively light in flavor.

Yunnan's natural conditions are very similar to Colombia's, with high altitude and large temperature differences between day and night. Its flavor belongs to the mellow aromatic type, with moderate acidity, rich mellow flavor, uniform particles, high oil content, and fruity aroma. Its quality and texture are similar to Colombian coffee. Coffee beans from Brazil's Cerrado region have comfortable sweet bitterness with extremely smooth entry. This basic blend coffee is suitable for small coffee shops, bakeries, or beverage stores. Additionally, this cost-effective Frontsteet basic espresso blend is also suitable for business and home users who prioritize cost and have general flavor requirements.

Espresso Extraction Demo

Next, using FrontStreet Coffee's current in-store Sunflower Warm Sun Espresso Blend as the main character, we'll demonstrate how to extract a delicious espresso base.

Step 1: Clean the Portafilter Basket
Before extracting espresso, remove the portafilter and clean the portafilter basket with a dedicated cloth to ensure it's clean and free of water stains.

Step 2: Grind Coffee and Collect
Turn on the grinder and start grinding coffee beans. Before collecting coffee grounds, place the portafilter on an electronic scale and zero it, then collect the coffee grounds and weigh them to ensure consistent weight each time. When collecting coffee grounds, pay attention to where they fall in the portafilter to ensure even distribution across all areas.

Step 3: Distribute Coffee Grounds
After collecting coffee grounds, use fingers or a distribution tool to distribute the grounds. The purpose is to ensure even distribution of coffee grounds and avoid areas of inconsistent density during tamping.

Step 4: Tamp
After distribution, tamp the grounds. During tamping, the direction should be perpendicular to the portafilter basket, with moderate force—neither too light nor too heavy. Too light will make the coffee puck loose, while too heavy will make the coffee puck too dense, making it difficult for water to pass through, leading to over-extraction.

Step 5: Lock Portafilter and Extract Espresso
Gently lock the portafilter into the coffee machine, avoiding collision with the machine. Excessive impact can cause cracks in the coffee puck, leading to channeling, under-extraction, and uneven extraction. Immediately after locking, start the extraction switch to begin extracting espresso. At the same time as extraction begins, weigh the espresso liquid with an electronic scale while monitoring the extraction time and the color state of the coffee liquid.

Step 6: Complete Extraction and Clean Portafilter Basket
Knock the spent puck into the knock box and clean with a dedicated cloth, then lock the portafilter back onto the coffee machine.

Extracted Espresso Flavor: Smooth texture, medium body, with noticeable fruit acidity upon entry accompanied by subtle berry aroma, whiskey fragrance, rich chocolate flavor, and obvious sweet aftertaste.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473