How is americano's coffee paired with fresh orange juice?

The Orange C Americano combines freshly squeezed orange juice with espresso, and it can be made either iced or hot. Making it well depends on two things: choosing the orange variety for the juice and setting the espresso extraction parameters, then following the specific steps for each version so the coffee aroma and citrus juice balance in one cup.

Oranges appear often in coffee tasting notes, from sweet orange to rock sugar orange and navel orange, which makes the pairing familiar. Juice can come from fresh fruit or a bought product, though squeezing it yourself lets you pick the variety and avoid additives. On iced americano or hot americano which is better, the choice comes down to season and preference, since both use the same base ratio.

Orange juice not only relieves fatigue, but its refreshing effect is even considered better than coffee. So what kind of taste experience would combining it with coffee bring? Today, Front Street Coffee takes you to recreate the popular Orange C Americano at home, breaking down the ingredient ratios and preparation details step by step—from choosing the variety of oranges for fresh juice and the extraction parameters for espresso to the specific steps for both iced and hot versions—to help you make a refreshing specialty drink that has both the rich aroma of coffee and the abundant juice of oranges.

The book "Superfood Rankings" mentions that washing oranges, peeling them, cutting the flesh into pieces, putting them in a pot, adding a little salt, boiling them, and drinking the juice can help relieve coughing and cold discomfort. Recently, research has also pointed out that drinking orange juice not only dispels fatigue but is even better than coffee at refreshing you.

So what effect would putting orange juice and coffee together inspire? Today, Front Street Coffee takes you to recreate at home a specialty drink that has swept the country—Orange C Americano—and see what new sparks these two popular ingredients can create.

As a standout in the citrus family, oranges have always held a blockbuster-like status in the food world, especially during the autumn and winter peak season, when this round fruit almost becomes a standard part of welcoming cooler weather.

Likewise, in coffee flavor descriptions, the word "orange" also appears frequently. For example, in Front Street's cupping notes, terms such as orange, sweet orange, rock sugar orange, and navel orange are often seen. Before even taking a sip, just reading these words brings to mind that sweet-and-sour juice sensation. So if the two are to be combined, how should one begin to present their aromas harmoniously in the same cup?

Pairing oranges with coffee looks simple, but if you really want to make it taste good, the ingredient ratios and preparation steps still need some care.

Step 1: Prepare the orange juice

There are only two sources of orange juice: freshly squeezed fruit or directly purchased finished product. If conditions allow, Front Street recommends squeezing the juice yourself. This way, you can choose the orange variety you like and it is healthy with no additives. Seasonal fresh fruits such as navel oranges, rock sugar oranges, Ehime jelly oranges, and Chu oranges are all worth trying. When juicing, you can choose to keep the pulp for a bit of chewiness when drinking; if you prefer a smoother, more direct drink, you need to filter out the pulp in advance.

If fresh squeezing is inconvenient, you can also go to a convenience store and pick a bottle of orange juice you like. NFC, Qoo, and Nongfu Spring are brands recommended by netizens to try.

Step 2: Get some coffee

Methods circulating online range from complicated and difficult to dead simple, with every version available. But if asked which is most sought after, many people's first thought would be Luckin's "Orange C Americano." To recreate it, the coffee part is best made with higher-concentration espresso or moka pot coffee liquid, so the finished drink will not be overwhelmed by the taste of the orange juice.

In addition, considering that orange juice itself has fruity sweetness and acidity, the coffee beans used to make the espresso can preferably be of the fresher-tasting type. For example, medium-roast beans whose flavor descriptions include raisin, apricot, mango, cranberry, toffee, fermented notes, or liqueur chocolate—terms that balance aroma and sweetness. On Front Street's bean list, Xizhua, Strawberry Candy, Huakui SOE, Santa Vini, or the store's regular Sunflower · Warm Sun blend are all worth recommending.

Step 3: Combine them together

To make an Orange C Americano, the ingredients are simply orange juice, coffee liquid, and ice. Apart from the pouring order, the only thing left to affect the final flavor is the ratio between them.

In order to find the best taste, Front Street compared several different ratios while recreating it and found that pairing coffee liquid and orange juice at 1:3 gives the most suitable concentration. It retains the rich aroma of the coffee itself while allowing the taste buds to first catch the abundant juice of the orange, making the combination especially refreshing and pleasant.

The process is not complicated either. Taking the parameters Front Street adjusted today as an example: first add 90 g of ice to the cup. If you want the coffee to look better in photos, you can also prepare an extra slice of orange and wedge it in. Then pour in 120 g of freshly squeezed juice (about 3 fresh oranges). Next, grind 19.8 g of Warm Sun coffee powder, extract 38 g of coffee liquid in 31 seconds, and gently pour it over the surface. A cup of iced Orange C Americano with a beautiful layer is then complete.

Can Orange C Americano be made as a hot drink?

As Guangzhou officially enters winter, Front Street has also put together a hot version of Orange C Americano for friends who are afraid of the cold. The approach is actually similar to another creative coffee—Flowing Sand Iced Americano—and the ingredients are the same as the iced drink above.

First prepare a milk pitcher and pour in 80 g of ice, 100 g of orange juice, and 38 g of espresso. Then heat the mixed fruit coffee the way you usually steam milk, until the ice is completely melted. If you like a warm-hot texture, you can continue frothing. When the milk pitcher feels slightly hot to the touch, you can stop heating.

Next, find a transparent glass, pour in all the orange juice coffee, and quietly wait for the flowing sand effect to appear.

Compared with the iced drink, the hot Orange C Americano made this way has more prominent fruity acidity, a slightly thicker mouthfeel, and a finish with a hint of citrus peel.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.