For food safety reasons, China's relevant food laws stipulate a one-year shelf life for coffee products. In reality, if you want to drink a good cup of coffee, Front Street Coffee recommends drinking it as soon as possible. Coffee fans who regularly buy coffee beans from Front Street know that the optimal flavor period for coffee beans is 30 days, which means that within one month we can taste the coffee's flavor. After all, coffee's aroma is a natural physical substance, and as time passes, the aroma will diminish. Once coffee is ground, it dissipates even faster. Of course, if you just treat coffee as a beverage to keep you alert, you can use it up within a year.
What is drip bag coffee?
Drip bag coffeeoriginated as the economy developed and the pace of life began to accelerate. Many coffee fans who have become office workers don't have much time to make pour-over coffee. If they rush through a pour-over, the resulting coffee is bound to taste bad. Sodrip bag coffeewas born this way.
And according to Front Street's understanding, it was initially Yamanaka Sangyo Co., Ltd. of Japan that applied the concept of tea bags to coffee, inventing the drip bag coffee and applying for a patent. However, the drip bag designed by Yamanaka Sangyo could not bear the weight of the brewing coffee and easily lost balance during brewing, so it was not successfully commercialized. It wasn't until 1998 that Daiki Shoji improved upon the original invention, extending the hanging ear portions outward, that today's drip bag coffee came to be.
Most coffee fans who come to Front Street's shop to buy drip bag coffee are also office workers. With the support and demand of coffee fans, Front Street also began developing some single-origin coffee beans suitable for making into drip bag coffee for Front Street's coffee fans to taste. For example, the Honduras Lychee Orchid coffee beans and Sherry coffee beans, recently most loved by Front Street Coffee fans, have been made into drip bag coffee by Front Street. But some coffee fans trying drip bag coffee for the first time are confused about how to brew it correctly, so next Front Street will demonstrate how to properly brew drip bag coffee!
Correct brewing method for drip bag coffee
1. Warm the cup
Prepare the cup for brewing drip bag coffee. First, pour in some hot water to warm the cup. The purpose is to prevent the brewed coffee from cooling too quickly, because coffee produces different flavors as the temperature drops—that is, layers of flavor. So if it cools too quickly, you'll miss many different tastes.
2. Water temperature
The brewing water temperature is very important. The recommended temperature is between 85 and 90 degrees. If the brewed coffee is too bitter, try lowering the water temperature. Conversely, if it's too weak or too astringent, you can raise the water temperature, but it should still remain within the range of 85 to 90 degrees.
3. Hang on the cup rim
First gently shake the drip bag to let the coffee grounds settle, avoiding coffee grounds scattering when you tear it open. Then pour out the hot water from the cup, tear off the seal strip on the drip bag, open up the paper hanging ears on both sides, and shake to level the coffee grounds. Finally, hang it on the rim of the cup.
4. Pre-wettingDrip bag coffee
For the first pour, you should pour just enough to wet the coffee grounds. Too much or too little will affect the flavor. Then wait 20 seconds to let the coffee grounds fully absorb the water. The strength of the coffee can be adjusted by the pre-wetting time—extending it to 40 seconds will give you a stronger coffee.
5. Pouring water
For the second pour, you can fill up to eight-tenths of the filter paper. It's best to use a thin, slender stream of water. Wait until the water level drops to the pre-wetted height, then continue pouring to eight-tenths full until you've extracted 150 to 180 cc. Once extraction is complete, there's no need to wait for all the water in the filter paper to drain out—just discard it directly.
Why brew correctlyDrip bag coffee
Front Street thinks some coffee fans may wonder why drip bag coffee can't just be steeped directly like a tea bag. This actually comes down to specialty coffee. Coffee fans who have had specialty coffee know that over-extraction during the pour-over process makes coffee bitter and unpleasant, which is why the brewing time needs to be streamlined. Drip bag coffee is essentially a portable version of specialty coffee—it's pre-ground coffee powder made into a packet, just saving coffee fans the step of grinding it themselves. So if drip bag coffee isn't brewed correctly, the flavor will likewise be poor.
Precautions for brewing drip bag coffee:
1. Do not brew it repeatedly.
2. After brewing, do not leave the coffee grounds soaking in the cup, otherwise it will over-extract.
3. Dropping the drip bag directly into the cup is convenient, but before the hot water fully saturates the powder bag, the water temperature starts to drop, causing under-extraction and affecting the drinking taste and flavor.
Best flavor period for drip bag coffee
As Front Street mentioned above, a drip bag coffee packet is essentially pre-ground specialty coffee, so its shelf life should be similar. But in fact, the optimal flavor period for drip bag coffee is somewhat shorter than for coffee beans. Generally, after coffee beans are made into drip bag coffee, it should be consumed within two weeks. This is because making drip bag coffee first involves grinding the coffee beans into powder, which increases the surface area of coffee exposed to air, making preservation more difficult. Within two weeks, you can fully enjoy the coffee's original aroma. However, this requirement is only for coffee fans who have demands for flavor. If you don't have overly high requirements for coffee aroma and flavor, then within a year, the coffee beans won't spoil.
Making the optimal flavor period of drip bag coffee longer is actually very difficult to achieve. According to Front Street's experience, even using vacuum packaging cannot suppress the dissipation of coffee aroma, because from the moment coffee beans finish roasting, carbon dioxide begins to be released. So attentive coffee fans will notice that when they receive drip bag coffee mailed from Front Street, the packaging is somewhat puffed up. This means the coffee was packaged while fresh, so when coffee fans receive it, it's exactly at its optimal flavor period.
And once the carbon dioxide in the coffee has been fully released (about two weeks), it begins to release aroma. On the surface there's no visible change, but the coffee has already slowly begun to deteriorate. If left at room temperature for more than two weeks, the coffee's aroma will have mostly dissipated. However, because the drip bag is sealed packaging, you can still smell the aroma when you open it, but after brewing it won't be as fragrant. That's why Front Street recommends coffee fans finish drip bag coffee within two weeks of receiving it, so they can taste its best flavor.
So coffee fans can see that many coffee bean packages on the market are equipped with a one-way valve, the purpose being to let carbon dioxide escape to prevent the package from bursting due to carbon dioxide expansion, while also preventing large amounts of air from entering. But many coffee fans who don't know this will squeeze the one-way valve to smell the aroma, but in fact, when squeezing out the aroma, they're also shortening the coffee's lifespan. So even if drip bag packets are equipped with a one-way valve, not only is the cost high, but it also cannot extend its optimal flavor period.
How to choose drip bag coffee?
So how do you choose drip bag coffee? As Front Street mentioned above, drip bag coffee is essentially ground specialty coffee, so coffee fans can simply choose based on the single-origin coffee they usually like. For example, Front Street's Panama Butterfly coffee beans or Honduras Sherry coffee beans, etc., Front Street can help make into drip bag coffee for coffee fans to choose from. So friends who really want to drink coffee during work might as well give drip bag coffee a try!
The above is the relevant information about drip bag coffee compiled by Front Street. We hope it can help coffee fans who want to learn about drip bag coffee.
For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat Front Street Coffee, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
