How to Make Plum Sparkling Iced Americano? Does Preserved Plum Cold Brew Coffee Taste Good?

If you ask which childhood snack still tastes the same as it did back then, FrontStreet Coffee would answer preserved plums. The three flavors of sour, sweet, and salty intertwine in your mouth, creating a refreshing yet rich taste that cuts through greasiness. When feeling drowsy, placing one in your mouth releases the preserved fruit aroma that gradually spreads across your tongue, followed by a delightful tartness that awakens your taste buds and stimulates salivation before quickly reviving you completely.

In fact, preserved plums, which are daily snacks for many people, also make appearances in the coffee world. For instance, when FrontStreet Coffee cup-tests washed Kenya coffee, the intense fruit aroma detected in the dry fragrance often brings preserved plums to mind. Preserved plum iced Americanos consistently rank among the most popular homemade coffee recipes. When developing new signature drinks, some baristas experiment with adding preserved plum elements to achieve rich, layered complexity.

However, since preserved plums are pickled products with mostly firm, dry textures, they typically require heating or prolonged soaking to soften during preparation, which releases strong salty and sour flavors. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee believes that preserved plums are better suited for refreshingly cold iced coffee than hot beverages. Below, FrontStreet Coffee presents three methods for making preserved plum iced coffee for you to choose from.

Preserved Plum Cold Brew

When it comes to which coffee brewing method is simplest yet most popular among the "lazy crowd," cold brew is undoubtedly the answer. Adding preserved plums to cold brew not only enhances its sweet and sour profile but also, through time's alchemy, imparts an additional layer of plum-like aroma to the iced coffee. Similar to FrontStreet Coffee's previously shared "anyone can master" series, as long as you select suitable coffee beans and pair them with the right parameters, making a refreshing and delicious preserved plum cold brew coffee at home is effortlessly easy.

First, grind 30 grams of Panama natural process "Flower Butterfly" coffee beans and add them to a cold brew pitcher. The grind size should be similar to fine sugar - the EK43s setting at FrontStreet Coffee stores is 9.5. At the same time, add 5 of your favorite preserved plums. Next, add 300 grams of room temperature water following a 1:10 coffee-to-water ratio, stir well, seal with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 6 hours. Finally, filter out the coffee grounds using filter paper and add ice cubes to taste before enjoying.

After several hours of waiting, the resulting preserved plum cold brew not only bursts with fruit aroma but also carries a substantial sweet sensation. What surprised FrontStreet Coffee was that the combination of preserved plums and natural process Flower Butterfly actually extended into a special complex aroma with notes of perilla, cherry, raspberry, and black grape flavors, leaving a particularly memorable impression.

Preserved Plum Sparkling Americano

When FrontStreet Coffee was learning how to make this preserved plum sparkling americano, we noticed that many online tutorials use methods like combining preserved plums with syrup and letting them marinate overnight, or boiling them with water and rock sugar to make preserved plum syrup. However, FrontStreet Coffee is focusing on those who prefer less sweetness and will present a sugar-free version of the preserved plum sparkling americano.

Step one: Prepare 4 preserved plums, add hot water, shake well, and refrigerate for one hour (no specific water requirement needed, just enough to submerge them).

Step two: Find a sufficiently large glass, fill it about 2/3 with ice cubes, then add all the preserved plum water we just prepared, followed by sparkling water until the glass is 7/10 full.

Step three: Extract 40 grams of espresso using 20 grams of Sunflower · Warm Sun blend coffee grounds, then pour it in gently.

Since carbonated beverages naturally contain abundant foam, even without high-temperature boiling, carbon dioxide effectively brings out the characteristics of preserved plums, allowing the entire americano to have both the rich aroma of iced coffee and the stimulating sensation from sparkling water, along with a touch of comfortable salty-sweet freshness.

Preserved Plum Iced Pour-Over

Here it comes, the iced pour-over with "creative techniques" has arrived!

Just like the orange peel filter cup that FrontStreet Coffee experimented with yesterday, adding ingredients to pour-over coffee is nothing new nowadays. Ingredients such as flower petals, fruits, and tea leaves have long been "seasoned players" in this arena. Although success or failure ultimately depends on luck, everyone still enjoys the experimentation. Today, we'll try adding preserved plums to pour-over coffee and see how it turns out.

Considering that most preserved plums are predominantly salty and sour, they pair well with coffee beans that have stronger sweetness. To harmonize the final flavor profile of the entire coffee, FrontStreet Coffee has chosen Panama Elida Estate's natural process Catuai for brewing. As for the other star ingredient - the preserved plums - we'll add them in two parts: first "hide" 3 plums in the filter cup to participate in extraction along with the coffee grounds, then place another 2 plums in the ice block in the serving pitcher, allowing them to continuously soak in the coffee liquid.

Iced pour-over parameters: 15 grams of coffee grounds, 1:10 coffee-to-water ratio, 75 grams of ice, fine grind (EK43s setting 9.5), water temperature: 91°C, filter cup: V60, brewing method: three-stage pour (30g, 60g, 60g).

The Elida, extracted together with preserved plums, surprisingly didn't fail. The pour-over coffee initially presents a delicate preserved plum fragrance, followed by tropical mature fruit flavors like mango and guava, along with the sweet and sourness of pickled plums. The mouthfeel is light and delicate. However, compared to the previous two coffee combinations, the pour-over version of preserved plum iced coffee is somewhat less pronounced in flavor.

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