The Origin of Drip Bag Coffee, How to Use Drip Bag Coffee, and the Drip Brewing Method for Drip Bag Coffee

Modern city dwellers lead busy lives, and the demand for coffee keeps rising. Instant coffee is familiar to many, but the sugar and creamer it so often carries weigh heavily on health over the long term.

To solve that problem, FrontStreet Coffee wants every coffee lover to be able to enjoy healthy single-origin coffee quickly and conveniently, and so it launched a line of drip coffee bags. Some may dismiss drip bags as unprofessional, but FrontStreet Coffee sees no reason to disparage them. After all, for any culinary pleasure to reach a wide audience, it needs faster, more convenient methods.

The Invention of Drip Coffee Bags

Mention Japanese coffee and most people think of pour-over. Pour-over is indeed popular in Japan, but young Japanese office workers on a fast-paced schedule have no time to wait for a cup of pour-over coffee — which is exactly why drip coffee bags were born.

In 1990, Japan's Yamanaka Industrial Co., Ltd. applied the idea of the tea bag to coffee, inventing the filter-hanging coffee bag and applying for a patent. The bag Yamanaka designed, however, could not bear the weight of brewing coffee and easily lost its balance during brewing, so it was never successfully commercialized. It was not until 1998 that Taiki Shoji improved on the original by extending the hanging parts outward, giving us the drip coffee bag we know today.

FrontStreet Coffee pays close attention to every stage of making its drip coffee bags, aiming to let every coffee lover enjoy the best drip single-origin coffee anytime, anywhere.

Production Process

1. Cleaning the Grinder for Drip Coffee Bags

FrontStreet Coffee thoroughly cleans the grinder before making each type of drip coffee bag, to prevent flavors from one coffee carrying over into another.

2. Grind Size for Drip Coffee Bags

The primary factor determining the quality of a drip bag is flow rate — neither too slow nor too fast — and that depends on the quality of the grinder. If the grinder is not of sufficient grade and grinds poorly, it will inevitably produce a large amount of fine powder and an uneven grind. During brewing this causes a "traffic jam" that slows the flow. Excessive soaking then leads to over-extraction, a muddled taste, and poor flavor. No matter how good the beans are, they will not be able to express their proper character.

3. Automated Packaging of Drip Coffee Bags

FrontStreet Coffee uses mechanical automated packaging for two reasons: first, to improve the seal on the outer packaging, and second, to inject nitrogen during packaging so as to eliminate oxygen as far as possible, making oxidation less likely and extending the freshness of the coffee's flavor considerably.

FrontStreet Coffee's Drip Bag Selection

FrontStreet Coffee offers four types of drip bags: FrontStreet Coffee Sun-dried Sidamo, FrontStreet Coffee Brazilian Red Bourbon, FrontStreet Coffee Honduras Sherry, and a random selection of five major producing regions. If customers need it, we can also customize drip bags from the producing regions they want.

FrontStreet Coffee Sun-dried Sidamo comes from the Sidamo producing region in southern Ethiopia. In the past, Sidamo beans also covered Yirgacheffe and Guji coffee; the ECX trading system has since separated Yirgacheffe and Guji from Sidamo. Sidamo coffee has a rich fruit acidity and a strong aroma. FrontStreet Coffee believes it surpasses Yirgacheffe in aroma, making it well suited to those who like strong flavors without wanting too heavy a cup — a perfect balance between aroma and mouthfeel.

FrontStreet Coffee Honduras Sherry beans come from Masaguara, a city in the Intibucá province of southwestern Honduras. Their flavor leans toward whiskey and sherry, with rich vanilla cream followed by a persistent nut and chocolate character. FrontStreet Coffee's Honduras Lychee Orchid, meanwhile, leans toward brandy, with slightly weaker flavor layers than the Sherry but the same persistent nut and chocolate finish.

FrontStreet Coffee Brazilian Red Bourbon comes from Cerrado, in the western part of Minas Gerais state — a flat plateau at an altitude of 750–1,200 meters. The Bourbon variety is a subspecies that mutated from Typica. When people speak of Bourbon, they generally mean red Bourbon, named for its color when ripe. FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian Red Bourbon features nuts, chocolate, cream, peanuts, and caramel.

How to Brew FrontStreet Coffee Drip Bags

Brewing parameters (for FrontStreet Coffee drip bags, 10g)

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Water temperature: 90–91°C

1) Carefully and neatly open the packaging bag along the tear notch;

2) Shake the drip bag flat, then tear open the powder bag seal. Spread the drip bag evenly and hang it on the rim of your cup;

3) Prepare a kettle of boiling water (a water temperature of 90–91°C is recommended for brewing coffee); pure water is best. After the water boils, let it sit for about 1 minute before pouring. Pour the hot water evenly into the filter bag, taking care not to pour too fast or with too large a stream, to avoid overflowing. Pour again once the liquid level in the filter bag drops. When the coffee in the cup reaches 7/10 full — or to your own preference — carefully remove and discard the drip bag (mind the burns) and enjoy.

Affordable, high-quality drip bags can only be brewed once — don't think of it as wasteful.

For more premium coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of FrontStreet Coffee, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Drip bags are hard to beat for convenience, but if you like to prepare coffee ahead of time, cold brew is another easy way to enjoy great single-origin coffee at home. Cold extraction amplifies floral and fruit notes and softens woody and roasted tones, so light-to-medium roasts shine. For a juicy, fruit-forward cup, try FrontStreet's Kenya Small Tomato, a washed Kenyan from the Sika region (grown at 1,550–1,750 meters, SL28 and SL34 varieties, AA TOP grade, given a 72-hour double wash): its cherry-tomato, smoked plum, pear, and black plum sweet-and-tart character comes through beautifully in the cold, low bitterness and full, bright acidity, and it is all the more refreshing over ice.

If you would rather have a sweeter, softer cold brew, FrontStreet's Strawberry Candy — a blend of Panama Geisha and a Costa Rican honey-process coffee — brings together delicate rose and orange with grape, raisin, and strawberry-candy sweetness. Cold brewed, it is bright and lively, and if you let it settle and ferment a little, it even takes on a fruit-wine quality.