Specialty Coffee Brewing Techniques: How to Brew Coffee with Green Tea-like Flavors and Aftertaste

Tea-like sensation, a descriptive term that we Chinese people are born with a natural familiarity for, often appears in the world of coffee, becoming one of the flavor descriptions for various premium coffees.

Once, a tea lover told FrontStreet Coffee that if she could find a coffee with both floral and fruity aromas and a tea-like character, it would be a wonderful experience. However, even when she bought beans described as having "tea-like sensation" and brewed them at home, she could never replicate the taste and flavor she experienced in the café. Either the extraction resulted in bitterness, or while the floral aromas and fruit acidity were present, it simply didn't taste like "tea." So she came to ask FrontStreet Coffee if there was a method to brew the tea-like sensation in coffee.

What is Tea-like Sensation in Coffee?

When we drink tea, tea polyphenols are important substances that form the tea charm and tea-like sensation, while also being one of the main components that create tea aroma and tea color, influencing our tea-drinking experience as they change during brewing. Among the series of polyphenolic substances, tea tannins, which account for the largest proportion, create a "rough" sensation in our mouths. When the concentration is high enough, what we commonly call "tea-like sensation" is formed.

In the world of coffee tasting, we evaluate a cup of coffee through our before-tasting aroma, the mouthfeel upon entry, and the aftertaste aroma after swallowing, combining it with foods we've encountered before to describe the resulting flavor.

Therefore, for a cup of coffee, when the aroma, aftertaste, and the level of sweetness in the mouth during tasting remind us of a certain type or specific tea—such as the fresh purity of green tea, the fruit-honey aroma of black tea, the floral-fruity and roasted notes of mixed oolong teas, or the aged aroma of dark tea—then we can describe this coffee as having "tea-like sensation."

Which Coffee Beans Are More Likely to Have Tea-like Sensation?

As we all know, light roasting can preserve the fruit acidity in coffee while greatly reducing the release of bitter substances, combined with the rich aromas emitted by the beans themselves, making the entire cup of coffee feel less like the typically bitter black coffee we imagine and more like a cup of tea.

Looking at FrontStreet Coffee's bean list, washed high-altitude beans like Panama Washed Geisha (Green Label), Boquete, Mariposa, Washed Yirgacheffe Guddina, Kaffa Forest, etc., often present the refreshing sweetness of green tea and oolong tea; sun-dried/honey-processed fruit-acidic coffees like Sidamo Guji, Geisha Village Gold & Red Label, New Oriental Geisha tend toward the rounded character of black tea and floral tea; while beans with balanced acid-bitter-sweetness like Tianzun Niao and FrontStreet Coffee's Typica often have the charm of Pu'er tea.

How to Brew Coffee with Tea-like Sensation?

To make coffee exhibit the ideal tea-like character, FrontStreet Coffee believes you can start with three small details: using a flat-bottom dripper (to provide soaking effect), increasing water amount (to enhance the release of late-stage substances), and reducing water flow (to extend extraction time). Below, we'll demonstrate this using Washed Kaffa Forest.

Coffee beans: Ethiopia Washed Kaffa Forest
Dripper: Ceramic cake cup
Water temperature: 92°C
Dose: 15g
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:16

Grind size: EK43s setting 10 (sieved to 80% through #20 sieve)

Three-stage extraction: First, pour 15g of coffee grounds into the dripper and level it. The first stage involves injecting 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, while starting the timer. Use a small water flow to inject from the center point and then circle outward, ensuring the entire coffee bed is moistened.

In the second stage, continue using a straight, small water flow to inject 120g of water, aiming to raise the entire coffee bed. You can try to make larger circles to allow all coffee particles to enter degassing and extraction state. Complete this at around 1 minute 05 seconds, at which point the timer scale will show 150g.

When the liquid level drops to about halfway, begin using a small water flow in small circles to inject the third stage of 90g. Try to control the water flow to not circle too widely, as this can easily disrupt the coffee bed and cause under-extraction. Moreover, gentle rinsing can enhance the release of sweet substances in the later stages of coffee.

Finally, the total water injection should be 240g. Wait until all the coffee liquid has finished dripping before removing the dripper, which should take around 2 minutes 20 seconds. This brewing method produces a Kaffa Forest with flavors of white flowers, citrus, and nectarine, with a fresh aroma of grapefruit peel and snow pear tea after entry, accompanied by a clear sweet aftertaste—it truly resembles a cup of floral tea.

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