Can Soybeans Be Used to Make Coffee? The Difference Between Soybeans and Coffee Beans

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Because they both contain the character "bean" (豆), coffee is often jokingly referred to as "foreigner's soy milk." This leads many people to wonder: since they're both beans, can soybeans also be made into coffee?

As a writer, I've been curious about this for a long time! Taking advantage of the first day of the New Year yesterday, and following the Guangdong tradition of "take a stroll on the first day for good fortune throughout the year," I pulled out my hand-cranked roasting net and set my sights on a package of single-origin soybeans!

From the appearance of the soybeans, you can see the beans are uniformly full and plump, with an extremely hard texture—harder than SHB grade coffee beans. After a round of sorting out defective and incomplete beans, these 50g contenders entered the roasting stage.

For the roasting method, I chose direct-fire roasting, using medium heat from a mini portable gas stove, with a rotation speed of 60-65 revolutions per 60 seconds, taking one step closer to soybean coffee!

(Followed by 25 minutes of hand-cramping operation!)

Roasting Timeline

At 4'30", the soybeans began a dense cracking sound lasting for 10 seconds, accompanied by the aroma of unsweetened popcorn, but no bean husks fell off.

At 7'30", the soybeans began to emit a roasted peanut aroma.

At 13'30", the soybeans began to emit the smell of freshly pressed peanut oil.

At 15'30", the soybeans began to caramelize, with the surface starting to show a light coffee color.

At 19'30", the soybean surface reached the color of medium-light roast coffee beans.

At 25'00", the soybean surface reached the color of medium roast coffee beans and the roasting was completed, followed by using a hairdryer for cooling.

After cooling, I weighed the coffee beans again to check the overall dehydration effect... (Normally, coffee beans weigh about 80-85% of their pre-roast weight after roasting). The soybeans weighed 41.2g after roasting, so perhaps, possibly, the soybeans reached the expected roasting outcome.

Grinding and Brewing

After roasting, I found myself in a mental struggle! The roasting process had a very obvious peanut oil smell, so I could imagine that these beans contain quite a lot of oil. If I used a grinder, it would basically be another round of exhausting work. (There should have been a picture, but because it was too messy, I forgot to take one!) But I still accepted this reality! I picked up the grinder, closed my eyes, and ground 11g of soybeans into relatively fine particles... The final result was as everyone expected: the roasted soybean powder that came out was only 10g... The other 1g was all stuck to the inner wall of the grinder! And it was very difficult to clean! I sacrificed a grinder just to satisfy my own and everyone's curiosity! Since it was already ground, time to brew! But because I forgot to bring a filter cup and filter paper, this time I chose a stainless steel coffee filter for brewing.

When I was full of joy, thinking that such freshly roasted soybeans should bloom impressively during the bloom stage... they didn't! The entire extraction process was very slow (perhaps because I ground too finely). About 100g of hot water was poured through 10g of roasted soybean powder, with an extraction time of about 2 minutes.

(Hmm... this is the bloom 🤫) However, the taste of the soybean liquid after extraction truly surprised me! Rich roasted grain aroma, flavors of roasted peanuts and roasted nuts, and the richness of dark chocolate.

But it wasn't over yet. What followed were herbal, spicy, oily notes... and a distinct smoky sensation (too fresh, drank immediately after roasting).

It had the feeling of medium-quality Mandheling coffee beans blended with Robusta coffee beans!

Conclusion

From this experience, soybeans roasted to medium-dark roast level, when extracted through fine grinding and high water temperature, can indeed produce a coffee-like taste! Just without caffeine. (It doesn't matter what coffee beans the coffee flavor comes from, but if you don't tell everyone, you could really get away with it.)

Although it's possible, I don't recommend everyone try it! Because after that grinder went through a thorough cleaning and aired out for a whole night, that oily smell was still quite overwhelming.

Finally, this writer wishes everyone: Happy New Year! Good health! May all your wishes come true! Prosperity and fortune!