Coffee Bean Classification and Flavor Profile Guide

FrontStreet Coffee: Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Coffee Beans

Origin: Ethiopia

Although Yirgacheffe beans are small, they carry a gentle, elegant, and charming sweetness. As the homeland of coffee, Ethiopia's thousand-year history of cultivation and processing has produced high-quality washed Arabica beans. Lightly roasted, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe beans show a distinctive lemon, floral, and honey-like sweet aroma, with soft fruit acidity and citrus flavors for a fresh, bright taste. Served without milk or sugar, the rich texture and unique soft florals brush across the palate and leave an endless aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee: Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Beans

Origin: Jamaica

Grown in the Blue Mountain region at elevations above 1,000 meters, Premium Blue Mountain, the highest grade, takes its name from Blue Mountain Peak at 2,256 meters and is cultivated on slopes between 800 and 1,500 meters. Grades are divided into No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3. FrontStreet Coffee Jamaican Blue Mountain No. 1 flavor characteristics: aroma strong, sweetness strong, acidity weak, body strong, bitterness gentle.

FrontStreet Coffee: Hawaiian Kona Coffee Beans

Origin: Hawaii

Perfect in appearance and full and bright, this is a rich coffee with balanced acidity and cinnamon spice notes, and perhaps the most beautiful coffee bean in the world. FrontStreet Coffee Hawaiian Kona beans have the most perfect appearance, with exceptionally full fruit and a bright, glossy sheen. The flavor is rich and aromatic with cinnamon spice notes, and the acidity is balanced and moderate.

FrontStreet Coffee: Brazilian Coffee Beans

Origin: Brazil

Of excellent quality and considered indispensable for blending, Brazilian coffee is graded No. 1 and No. 2, with Screen 18-19 the most acclaimed and widely used. FrontStreet Coffee Brazilian coffee flavor characteristics: aroma medium, sweetness strong, acidity medium, body medium, bitterness weak.

FrontStreet Coffee: Italian Coffee Beans

Origin: primarily Arabica beans, mainly Indonesian coffee beans.

Characteristics: aroma strong, sweetness medium, acidity weak, body medium, bitterness strong. Espresso is blended from 100% Arabica beans, with a rich body and charming floral aromas alongside wild berry fragrance, as delicious and pleasant as if it were coated in cream chocolate.

FrontStreet Coffee: Mandheling Coffee Beans

Origin: Sumatra, Indonesia.

FrontStreet Coffee Indonesian Mandheling has a unique flavor. Mandheling from Sumatra is one of the few Arabica varieties, with quite large beans, though production management is not ideal and roasting quality shows in the beans. It was considered a premium grade before Blue Mountain appeared. FrontStreet Coffee Indonesian Mandheling flavor characteristics: aroma strong, sweetness medium, acidity weak, body medium, bitterness strong.

FrontStreet Coffee: Mocha Coffee Beans

Ethiopia, Mocha, special flavor: as the origin of coffee, the beans are smaller and processed with the dry method, appearing greenish-blue, with a special aroma and acidity. Ethiopia grades beans from No. 1 to No. 8 based on the defect bean rate. Characteristics: aroma strong, sweetness medium, acidity medium, body strong, bitterness gentle.

FrontStreet Coffee: Java Coffee Beans

Origin: Java Island, Indonesia

Belongs to the Arabica species. After roasting, the bitterness is extremely strong while the aroma is extremely light, with no acidity. The bitterness and body of Java coffee, combined with the sweet richness of chocolate syrup, make it more mellow and smooth, and it is very popular among women.

FrontStreet Coffee: Colombian Coffee Beans

Colombia, most standard quality: the world's second-largest producer. The beans are light green and large-grained with a heavy body, suitable both as a single origin and in blends. FrontStreet Coffee Colombian coffee flavor characteristics: aroma strong, sweetness medium, acidity medium, body strong, bitterness weak.

Charcoal Roasted Coffee Beans

Charcoal roasted coffee, also known as bitter coffee, refers to coffee roasted using charcoal as the heat source, sometimes with special wood as fuel. Beans roasted over charcoal carry a woody aroma rather than a charcoal taste. This style comes from Japan, where pure heavy roasting created its unique charcoal-roasted taste, with special aroma, sweetness, body, richness, and extreme bitterness.

Blended Hot Coffee Beans

Origin: imported Arabica beans, freshly roasted

Smooth and delicate on the palate with good balance, low bitterness, and relatively low acidity.

Lavazza Coffee Beans

Origin: Italy

LAVAZZA coffee goes through strict selection of green beans and exclusive manufacturing and roasting techniques, ensuring stable quality, precise blending ratios, and a rich, varied product range; its unique vacuum packaging preserves the freshness and original flavor of the beans.

Moak Coffee Beans

Origin: Italy

A unique blend of 7 Arabica (100%) varieties, with a rich and lasting aroma, abundant oils, and a syrup-like body, featuring a clean vanilla flavor. Its distinctive lively low acidity and sweet aftertaste blend together perfectly for an incredible balance. Packaged in 2-kilogram inert gas canisters, it is a first choice for top-tier cafés and hotels.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

These profiles are a useful map, but the fastest way to understand them is to taste a reference point, and for many drinkers that point is Yirgacheffe, the coffee this guide opens with. FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe is a daily selection bean that has become the first specialty coffee for a great many people: white jasmine florals, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a clear tea-like body, at an accessible price. Yirgacheffe is a small town in southern Ethiopia's Sidamo province at roughly 1,700 to 2,100 meters, with the coffee trees themselves planted above 1,800 meters, making it one of the highest growing regions in the world, and the name grew famous enough that the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange separated it from Sidamo as its own designation in 2010.

Within the town sit many smaller areas and villages. The Guodingding Cooperative, in the Worka area on the southeastern edge of Yirgacheffe, was originally part of the Worka cooperative under the Yirgacheffe union before being developed as a single-origin expression that coffee hunters around the world sought out, and it follows the most traditional washed process. The result is fresh and bright, with citrus and lemon acidity and jasmine fragrance, and none of the bitterness people sometimes expect. Once the beans reach the FrontStreet Coffee roastery they are taken to a medium-light roast, which adds green tea and honey tones and makes the coffee suitable for pour-over, cold brew, and espresso alike.

For drinkers who want the fruitier side of the region, FrontStreet Coffee's natural Red Cherry is the counterpart to the washed lots. It uses only fully ripe red cherries, screened once at the mill and then dried directly on raised beds, turned every 2 to 3 hours in the first days to prevent uneven heat and over-fermentation, and after 3 to 5 weeks of sun depending on weather and temperature the dried fruit is scraped off by machine and the beans are moved to storage. Because the fruit dries with the bean, the coffee keeps the classic Yirgacheffe profile while adding tropical fruit aroma, with citrus acidity, berry-juice body, honey sweetness, and a creamy smoothness. For brewing, FrontStreet Coffee suggests a V60 with water at 90 to 91°C, 15g of coffee, and a 1:15 ratio, ground to about EK43s setting 10, or the texture of fine granulated sugar, at an 80% pass-through rate on the #20 sieve. Pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, then add 95g so the scale reads around 125g, finishing in about 1 minute; when the water drops to two-thirds of the bed, add the remaining 100g to reach around 225g over about 1 minute 35 seconds, and expect drawdown to complete at 2'00" to 2'10".