Many friends have asked Front Street Coffee's baristas what SOE coffee is, why many specialty coffee shops now offer SOE coffee, and why Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) has not added SOE coffee to its menu. The reason Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) has not put SOE coffee on the menu is thatSOE coffeeis espresso extracted from single-origin coffee beans. Coffee beans are affected by factors such as weather, cultivation, and roasting, which can cause flavor differences between different batches of the same bean, making it impossible to guarantee a stable flavor in every cup of espresso.
What isSOE coffee?
Single-origin espresso is also called single-origin espresso - SOE, with the full name "Single Origin Espresso." Although SOE stands for single-origin espresso, it does not necessarily equal specialty coffee. If single-origin coffee beans with easily recognizable flavors are selected for SOE, it can produce espresso with a unique and typical flavor. For example, the citrus flavor of Front Street Yirgacheffe, the cherry tomato flavor of Front Street Kenya, and so on. In addition, under the high pressure of an espresso machine, espresso magnifies the coffee's flavor, so the flavor performance is more prominent than pour-over.
What should be noted when making SOE?
For SOE single-origin espresso, in order to highlight the flavor of the origin, the coffee beans selected are generally not roasted too dark. Compared with traditional darker-roastedespresso beans, the flavor is harder to extract. Front Street believes that on the one hand, extraction parameters need to be adjusted to increase the extraction yield. For example, extending the extraction time, making the grind finer, increasing the dose, and so on.
On the other hand, when usingSOE coffee beansas the base for espresso drinks, it is necessary to adjust the ratio of espresso to milk or water. Reduce the milk or water to highlight the coffee's taste, so that the coffee does not become too weak. Finally, there are also very strict requirements for choosing thecoffee beans used to make SOE. Although SOE coffee performs prominently, because it comes from a single origin, its shortcomings are also relatively easy to magnify, so factors such as roasting and particle size will affect the flavor.
How does Front Street use Front Street Brazil Queen's Estate Yellow Bourbon coffee beans to extract SOE?
Coffee dose 20g
Coffee liquid yield 40ml
Extraction time 27 seconds
Grind size Galileo Q18 2.0 setting
SOE flavor description: citrus, berries, fermented aroma, syrupy, medium bitterness, medium-high acidity, bright and lively acidity.
Front Street hopes that every friend who comes to Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) can drink a stable, clearly flavored espresso or milk coffee every time, so the espresso used is a Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun espresso blend made from Front Street Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry and Front Street Honduras Whiskey Barrel Sherry as the daily espresso beans.
The purpose of Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) blending coffee beans:
1. To create long-term stable flavor
Different harvest seasons in the same origin, and even different batches within a year, will produce different tastes. This is where the drawback of a single origin is exposed. You cannot confidently guarantee that next year you will still be able to drink the same single-origin coffee you found delicious this year (except for coffee beans whose flavor is dominated by processing method, and other factors between the origin and the cafe can also cause the coffee beans you buy to differ in taste from before). Therefore, one purpose of blending is to create a product that can be supplied long term with long-term stable flavor. When the quality of one coffee bean cannot meet requirements in a new harvest season or changes, similar coffee beans can be found as replacements to achieve stability.
2. To create flavors that a single coffee bean cannot produce
Sometimes a single-origin coffee bean is like a person, with both strengths and weaknesses, while blending is like organizing a team, taking each one's strengths to make up for the other's weaknesses, thereby achieving a complementary effect. For example, using a sweeter coffee bean to blend with a more acidic coffee bean to achieve a balance of sweetness and acidity, or adding some Brazil beans to a coffee blend to improve the overall body, and so on. These are all purposes of blending.
3. Next, Front Street will determine the target flavor of the blend
When Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) first blended Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun espresso blend, we were very clear that we wanted to blend a coffee bean with wine aroma, so we could immediately include Front Street Honduras Sherry Barrel, Front Street Honduras Lychee Orchid, and Front Street Colombia San Jose, these three barrel-fermented coffee beans with obvious winey flavor, in the candidate list for the blend. Through many attempts, and considering factors such as cost-effectiveness, we finally settled on Front Street Honduras Sherry Barrel as the main tone of Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun blend.
4. Finally, Front Street will determine the blending type
The advantage of pre-roast blending is that the same roast degree can be used to make the coffee more stable and uniform. The second is that it can reduce the number of roasts, completing it in one roast and improving efficiency. At the same time, the disadvantages of pre-roast blending are also very obvious. The limitations of pre-roast blending are very large. Generally, pre-roast blending is more recommended for several beans with relatively similar density. For example, mixing a coffee bean suitable for light roasting with a coffee bean suitable for dark roasting and roasting them together to the same roast degree can easily lead to a situation where 1+1<1.
The advantage of post-roast blending is that each bean can be roasted according to its optimal roast degree, maximizing each bean's characteristics. But the disadvantage of post-roast blending is that daily quality control and management become more difficult. Inconsistent roast dates require more attention to more resting periods. Just imagine using 4 to 5 coffee beans for post-roast blending; this one product requires attention to 4 to 5 roast dates. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) uses post-roast blending when roasting Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun blend, separately roasting the Front Street Honduras Sherry Barrel coffee beans and Front Street Natural Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Project, in order to maximize the wine aroma of the Front Street Sherry Barrel coffee beans and also preserve as much as possible the fruity acidity and citrus-berry aroma of the other Front Street Natural Yirgacheffe.
When Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) selects blended beans and formulates a blending plan, it is necessary to first determine the coffee characteristics to be presented, including the expression of sweetness, acidity, and bitterness, expectations for body, coffee flavor, and whether the main product is milk coffee or Americano, or espresso. These are all things that need to be considered when selecting green beans, determining the roasting method, and determining the formula. Not only that, before the formula is finalized, it will also undergo multiple tests, adjustments, retests, and readjustments......
Front Street uses the Lelit V3 espresso machine, and the extraction parameters are as follows:
Pressure: 9 bar
Temperature: 90.5~96°C
Time: 20~30 sec
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:1.7~1:2
Dose: 12g (single espresso) 20g (double espresso)
Extracted espresso yield: 20ml (single) 40ml (double)
This Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun espresso blend, extracted under pressure by an espresso machine, has obvious fruity acidity in flavor, with a faint berry aroma lingering, rich wine aroma and chocolate flavor, and a comfortable sweet aftertaste.
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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
