Guangzhou | More Specialty Coffee Beans Than Any Coffee Exhibition. FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)

I mentioned to a friend the other day that my choice of café depends on the weather, where I go on sunny days, on cloudy days and on rainy days. Compared with many places, autumn and winter in Guangzhou are quite warm. During the weekend before last year's winter solstice I spent two consecutive days drinking coffee at FrontStreet Coffee. Dongshan is my favourite part of Guangzhou, bar none. The accumulated years give it a rich scholarly atmosphere and the simple, authentic feel of daily life.

Take the subway to Dongshankou and walk from Shuqian Road to Miaoqian Zhijie and you pass many large trees where neighbourhood grandpas play chess and grandmas sit chatting. Along the way you see the very old-looking Dongshan Department Store, vintage photo studios, shoe repair shops and plenty of Guangzhou-style snacks. The shop itself is indeed small. Arrive a little late and there may be no seats left; sometimes it even feels cramped. Next to the bar counter sits a coffee roaster, with a chalkboard densely filled with the various beans. The owner roasts every day, and once the machine starts in the morning the whole of Bao'an Front Street fills with the aroma of coffee beans.

Those sitting at the bar counter are either regulars or coffee enthusiasts who want to chat with the barista. Unfortunately, on my several visits the counter was always full. The small tables nearby have pre-selected beans on them, the wall near the entrance is covered with coffee bean packaging bags, and unroasted beans are stacked against the wall in bag after bag.

Through a small door next to the bar counter there are two outdoor tables. On my first visit I chose to sit outside, not only so I could smoke but, more importantly, so I could enjoy the particularly fine Guangzhou winter sun. The first coffee I had was a sun-processed Guatemala. I remember Ye Erman asking me at the time why I was going out when I had a cold. I replied that since I needed coffee at home anyway, I might as well come out for a walk and some sunshine. The barista sat down at the table opposite me with a box of roast meat for his meal and asked how the coffee tasted. It matched my mood that day: a little comfortable, a little happy, very gentle yet rich, full of sweetness with a hint of wine-like aroma.

The next day happened to coincide with a friend visiting Guangzhou on business from another city. Before dinner I ran to FrontStreet Coffee to buy some drip coffee bags and try the newly aged beans. Most of FrontStreet Coffee's cups are lightweight and thin with delicate handles, carrying a British flair just like the chairs in the shop. When serving single-origin coffee they provide a piece of caramel biscuit. Many people enjoy this type of biscuit; I have seen some cafés serve it even with lattes. The texture is slightly hard, and after swallowing there is a warm, burning sensation in the throat.

I am not sure whether it is the accumulated time around Dongshankou or simply that FrontStreet Coffee's cups are so British in style, but I always drink my coffee particularly slowly here. Most cafés use rather casual cups, either coloured or thick, and the way people hold them carries a lazy, casual attitude. In other cafés they bring out a sharing pot and guests drink cup after cup heartily, as if drinking wine.

A sound I have recently become fascinated by: the chopping of vegetables and the clash of spatulas from the kitchen window around meal times, accompanied by waves of food aroma that smell particularly like home. I love strolling through supermarkets, pushing a cart to buy many fruits and vegetables, or simply buying a pile of ingredients to go back for hotpot, sitting around with friends or family, which feels like an especially happy thing. Thinking about what Yun Jie said then, about renting an apartment on weekends, buying some seafood or some ingredients to cook at home, none of it has been realised yet.

Recently the weather in Guangzhou has been cycling between cloudy days in the low 20s and sunny days in the 30s. Today two typhoons hit Guangdong, but unlike the previous "Nida" which gave us a day off, they instead suspended the intercity railway between Guangzhou and Shenzhen. I had originally planned to visit some cafés in Shenzhen. Now it seems I can only reminisce. Ever since someone left Shenzhen I have not visited any cafés there, partly because I have been too busy with work and also because my health has not been great lately. Still, perhaps it is time to start planning a café-hopping trip to Xiamen.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

A shop like this is a good place to land on a medium roast, and FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate is one to ask about. It comes from the world's largest coffee-producing country and is the local Yellow Bourbon variety, with a fresh, gently sweet character. Medium roasted, it shows cream, peanut, chocolate, toast and sugarcane sweetness, and it works as pour-over, in a moka pot or on an espresso machine.

If you want something sweeter and more fruit-forward while still in the medium range, FrontStreet Coffee's Strawberry Candy is built from two well-known Central and South American origins, Costa Rican honey-processed coffee and Panamanian washed Geisha. A medium roast is used to bring out both the orange-blossom honey note and a rounded sweetness, and it suits cold brew, pour-over and espresso alike. For a taste of home soil, FrontStreet Coffee's 2013 sun-dried Typica, from the estate planted at 1,300 metres in Lincang, is medium roasted to keep its balance and softness, with nut, brown sugar, black tea and dried apricot notes, and it can be brewed as pour-over, cold brew or filter.

Then there is the classic FrontStreet Coffee Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1, also a Typica, medium roasted so the acidity, bitterness, sweetness and body merge into one elegant profile: chocolate, roasted nuts, cream and caramel on entry. On a slow Dongshan afternoon, with the cups as thin and British as the chairs and a caramel biscuit on the saucer, it is exactly the coffee to drink slowly.