Selecting Coffee Beans for SOE: Which Region's Beans Are Best for Single Origin Espresso?

Choosing the Right SOE Coffee Beans

Since the emergence of the "specialty coffee" concept, the unique flavors of various producing regions have become increasingly familiar to coffee enthusiasts, and SOE has grown increasingly popular in the coffee market. So how do you choose the right SOE coffee beans?

What is SOE?

SOE stands for "Single Origin Espresso," which means "single-origin espresso coffee." Its focus is to highlight the coffee flavor from a specific origin, essentially showcasing the flavor of coffee beans from a single origin in espresso form.

Since its inception, SOE has been associated with coffee that has good regional flavor characteristics. This means that the selected coffee should highlight the unique flavors of its origin, creating an impressive experience for the drinker.

Characteristics of Espresso Production

Espresso production enhances the regional flavor characteristics. Besides "concentrating" the coffee's aroma, it also increases its acidity. Secondly, for most people who produce espresso, the purpose is to use it as a base for milk-based coffee drinks, making crema requirements essential.

Unlike pour-over and other drip coffee methods, espresso must release most of its aromatic compounds in just 20-30 seconds. Espresso features a layer of golden Crema, which we call crema or "oil." Besides the coffee's natural oils, it also includes carbon dioxide released from freshly roasted coffee beans.

Crema is essentially insoluble oils from coffee beans encapsulating carbon dioxide, which in turn contains the coffee's flavor compounds. Therefore, the richness of the crema largely determines the richness of the espresso's flavor. Sufficient crema is necessary to support the flavor presentation of an espresso shot. This explains why freshly roasted beans exhibit more crema.

In other words, typical espresso demands a certain level of acidity and appropriate crema performance. Excluding flavor considerations, what degree of coffee bean roast is suitable for SOE espresso use?

Here, we use espresso made with extremely finely ground coffee powder, at a 1:1.9-1:2 powder-to-liquid ratio, extracted under high temperature (94°C) and high pressure (9bar) within 25-35 seconds, as our comparison benchmark.

FrontStreet Coffee tried using three daily beans with different roast levels: light-roasted Yirgacheffe, medium-roasted Brazil, and dark-roasted Mandheling to make standard espresso, observing the richness of crema under different roast levels.

Extraction Parameters

Coffee Powder Weight | Coffee Liquid Weight | Extraction Time

Yirgacheffe | 20g | 38g | 28 seconds

Brazil | 20g | 38g | 30 seconds

Mandheling | 20g | 38g | 30 seconds

From this, we can clearly see that under the same extraction parameters, the light-roasted Yirgacheffe has less crema than the medium-roasted Brazil and Mandheling, and its crema color is lighter than the latter two; while the medium-roasted Brazil has less crema than Mandheling. In terms of crema richness comparison: Yirgacheffe < Brazil < Mandheling.

Of course, this is a trade-off made from the perspective of crema requirements. In terms of flavor, light-roasted Yirgacheffe offers rich lemon acidity upon first sip, but it's fleeting with a short aftertaste and relatively thin mouthfeel.

Meanwhile, the medium and dark-roasted Brazil and Mandheling have overall bitter-leaning flavors with rich nutty-chocolate notes, sufficient sweetness, smooth and full-bodied mouthfeel, and long-lasting aftertaste; Mandheling has an additional herbal note in the finish compared to Brazil.

Light-roasted Yirgacheffe doesn't perform as well in terms of crema, but if you're seeking acidity in espresso, you can choose to use light-roasted coffee beans to make SOE; however, if you want an SOE with rich crema and smooth, full-bodied mouthfeel, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using medium to medium-dark roasted coffee beans for SOE.

Although quality SOE can well reflect the taste of an origin, its limitation is that it can only reflect the regional flavor. For example, the light-roasted Yirgacheffe mentioned above - if you like its acidity and delicate floral notes but feel it lacks body and is too thin in mouthfeel. If the roaster follows your suggestion to change the roasting curve and increase body, it will lose some fruit acidity and floral notes. This is where "blends" become the most cost-effective solution to such problems, combining complementary flavor characteristics from different origins to achieve flavor balance.

This is just a comparison result we made using daily beans with the most basic flavors. In practical applications, we tend to choose higher-priced single-origin specialty coffee beans as SOE options. In this case, because these single-origin beans already possess excellent aromas, when expressed through espresso, excluding crema requirements, most beans will perform exceptionally well, with the only drawback being - too expensive!!! If we take it a step further, moving beyond daily beans and even beyond SOE, a Geisha blend would be exceptional. For example, FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Mirasol blend is medium-roasted, meeting the need for crema, while being composed of outstanding specialty beans. Its candy-like aroma in espresso comes as no surprise.

Therefore, this article only examines the impact of roast degree on crema from this perspective, helping us clearly understand the baseline of crema performance and providing reasons for using medium and medium-dark roasted coffee beans for espresso. If you want to experience stronger acidity while accepting SOE with less ideal crema performance, light-roasted coffee beans might also meet your requirements.

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FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)
No. 10, Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

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