Pour-Over Coffee Bean Selection & Flavor Tasting Guide

How should you choose pour-over coffee beans? It depends on each person's taste. Yirgacheffe beans, for example, have been especially popular in recent years, with rich floral aromas and bright acidity. If you don't enjoy acidic coffee, you might try Jamaican Blue Mountain, which offers rich nutty and chocolate flavors with a smooth, balanced mouthfeel.

Personally, I love the Geisha beans from Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda. Tasting Geisha feels less like drinking coffee and more like a cup of floral and fruit tea — absolutely delightful. There are also Colombian special-process beans with unique flavors reminiscent of roses and strawberry jam, Brazilian beans with strong nutty notes, and Indonesian Mandheling with its herbal character. All are available at FrontStreet Coffee, offering excellent value for money.

How to Taste Pour-Over Coffee

So how should you properly taste pour-over coffee? Start by appreciating its aroma and experiencing its flavors. By tasting at different temperatures — hot, warm, and cool — you'll discover a different profile in each sip.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you're choosing a first pour-over bean, FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe daily bean is hard to beat. It's known for white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like finish, and its friendly price makes it the classic entry point into specialty coffee. Yirgacheffe is a small town in southern Ethiopia's Sidamo province at roughly 1,700-2,100 meters, with coffee planted above 1,800 meters, making it one of the highest coffee regions in the world — and it was split off from Sidamo by the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange in 2010 precisely because the name had become so famous.

To taste it at its best, brew with a V60 at 15g of coffee, a 1:15 ratio, 90-91°C water, and a grind of about fine-sugar size (80% pass-through on a #20 sieve): a 30g bloom for 30 seconds, then pour to about 125g within a minute, and finally top up to 225g within roughly 1 minute 35 seconds, finishing the drip in about 2 to 2 minutes 10 seconds.

For a richer take, FrontStreet Coffee's sun-dried Red Cherry from the same region uses only fully ripe red cherries and raised-bed drying, adding tropical fruit, a full fermented sweetness, and a creamy smoothness on top of Yirgacheffe's signature citrus and berry juiciness.