How should Yirgacheffe SOE espresso be tasted?

SOE espresso uses single-origin beans on an espresso machine instead of a blend. Yirgacheffe Red Cherry from the Warm Sun blend is pulled with 20 grams of grounds yielding 40 grams of liquid in 35 seconds; as an americano at a 1:4 coffee-to-water ratio, it shows a berry-like sweet-and-sour taste.

Beans roasted for pour-over do not automatically suit espresso, because lightly roasted beans pulled directly taste sharply acidic, so the Warm Sun Red Cherry is roasted darker than the single-origin version. The same shot also works in a latte, where milk softens the acidity and shifts the flavor toward sweetness with less pronounced fruit.

In recent years, the specialty coffee wave has gradually spread from the pour-over domain to espresso, with more and more cafés beginning to use single-origin coffee beans on their espresso machines—a practice known as SOE (Single Origin Espresso). However, SOE is not simply about moving pour-over beans onto an espresso machine—the roasting requirements for pour-over and espresso are entirely different, and lightly roasted beans pulled directly as espresso tend to taste sharply acidic. This article uses the Yirgacheffe Red Cherry from Front Street Coffee's Warm Sun blend as an example to share SOE extraction parameters, as well as the flavor characteristics when made into an Americano and a latte, helping coffee enthusiasts understand the proper way to drink single-origin espresso and its taste profile.

The continued rise of single-origin coffee in the pour-over market has similarly influenced the evolution of espresso. Many specialty cafés have begun experimenting with using single-origin coffee beans on espresso machines, and this style of preparation is called SOE, or Single Origin Espresso.

From another perspective, the purpose of launching SOE has never been to showcase the regional flavors of a particular origin, but rather to select beans with distinctive flavor characteristics and sell them at a higher price point, thereby creating a more upscale product image. In this respect, it differs somewhat from the logic of the pour-over coffee market.

Single-origin beans used for pour-over are not necessarily suitable for making SOE, because when espresso extraction meets certain lightly roasted beans, it easily brings out sharp acidity. Therefore, even for the same coffee bean, the roast level will differ when used as SOE versus when used for pour-over.

Taking "Front Street" as an example, the pour-over single-origin Yirgacheffe Red Cherry and the Yirgacheffe Red Cherry used in the Warm Sun blend have different roast levels—the Red Cherry used for Warm Sun is roasted somewhat darker than the single-origin beans.

What does Yirgacheffe SOE taste like?

Front Street extracts the Yirgacheffe Red Cherry from the Warm Sun blend as SOE, with parameters of: 20 grams of coffee grounds, extracting 40 grams of coffee liquid, taking 35 seconds.

When made into an Americano at a 1:4 ratio of coffee liquid to water, you can perceive a berry-like sweet-and-sour taste along with caramel aroma.

When made into a latte at a 1:4 ratio of coffee liquid to milk, it presents caramel aroma, the sweetness of lactose, and a rich, smooth mouthfeel.

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