As everyone knows, Front Street recently launched a new floral and fruity espresso blend on Taobao Tmall—Front Street Strawberry Candy Espresso. Perhaps because the flavor is quite appealing, friends often ask Front Street's backend customer service: "Your espresso beans are so delicious, can I use them for pour-over?"The answer is obvious—of course you can~ Although espresso beans are primarily intended for espresso machines, they can also be used for pour-over coffee. Moreover, espresso and pour-over are simply different extraction methods, so naturally any coffee bean can be extracted either way.But we need to understand that "can it be brewed" and "does it taste good" are two different things! If we want to make a delicious pour-over using espresso beans, we need to find the corresponding brewing parameters based on the characteristics of the beans.Generally speaking, whether single-origin or blended, beans used for espresso tend to be roasted darker than those used for pour-over or French press. Setting aside other characteristics, the reason espresso beans need a darker roast is that espresso needs to accommodate milk-based coffee preparation.When we need to add milk to coffee, it's not advisable to use beans with too light a roast. Because although a light roast can showcase the bean's inherent flavors well, it cannot compete with the taste of a large amount of milk. Especially when making milk coffees like lattes that contain a lot of milk, the flavor of light-roasted coffee is easily masked by the milk. Even if we reduce the amount of milk, the coffee's flavor still cannot express itself well.In addition, espresso made from light-roasted beans will be particularly sour. As we all know, aside from flavor, the lighter the roast, the more acidity is preserved in the coffee. Espresso itself is an extremely concentrated coffee, and this high concentration intensifies the coffee's flavors. So when we use light-roasted beans dominated by acidity to make espresso, the espresso will have a very high level of acidity.Although we often don't drink espresso directly, there are always methods/drinking styles like Con Panna and Dirty that separate the espresso from other ingredients. For most people, encountering high-intensity sourness is even less pleasant than high-intensity bitterness. That's why beans used for espresso are roasted slightly darker. This reduces the coffee's acidity while giving it a roasted aroma that can compete with the taste of milk.Because of this, not just blends but also single-origin coffees—whenever beans are designated for espresso use, the roaster will choose a darker roasting profile to prepare the beans. So if we want to brew a delicious pour-over using espresso beans, we first need to find suitable parameters based on their roast level, so that the coffee won't be over-extracted due to excessive extraction efficiency.Take Front Street'sEthiopia·Hua Kuifrom the Front Street bean list as an example! The Hua Kui sold by Front Street on Taobao offers two roast levels to choose from: one is a light roast that beautifully showcases the coffee's floral and fruity aromas; the other is a medium roast more suitable for espresso.When brewing the former, because it's lighter roasted with higher density, Front Street uses a higher-extraction-efficiency formula to brew it—the 15g coffee brewing formula that Front Street has always shared: water temperature 92°C, grind sizeNo. 20 sieve75%~80% passing rate, coffee-to-water ratio 1:15, three-pour method, 2 minutes.The Hua Kui brewed with this formula performs exceptionally well—the taste is primarily sweet and sour, the mouthfeel is clean, the flavors are prominent, featuring berries, citrus, floral notes, and oolong tea.But if we use this formula to brew the medium-roasted Front Street Ethiopia·Hua Kui, the result is predictable—most likely an over-extracted coffee with muddy and bitter notes. Because a medium roast reduces the extraction difficulty, the flavor compounds in the coffee dissolve more quickly, and the same parameters will naturally extract more bitterness.If we want to avoid this situation, we need to lower the extraction parameters to reduce extraction efficiency, so we can brew a delicious pot of coffee. The two main parameters Front Street adjusts here are: one is water temperature, lowered from 92°C to 90°C; the other is grind size, adjusted coarser from No. 20 sieve 75%~80% passing rate to 70%~75%, in order to reduce the surface area of coffee grounds contacting water.Through such adjustments, the brewed coffee can perfectly avoid over-extraction and beautifully showcase its own charm. The medium-roasted Hua Kui performs somewhat differently from the light-roasted Hua Kui—it has a more substantial mouthfeel, a more balanced taste, no longer dominated by sweet and sour notes.In terms of flavor, because of the slightly darker roast, besides floral and fruity notes, we also taste chocolate and caramel aromas, and the aftertaste is longer than that of the light-roasted Hua Kui.Similarly, this set of parameters can also be used for the Strawberry Candy mentioned at the beginning by Front StreetEspresso! That is: 15g coffee, 88~90°C water temperature, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, No. 20 sieve 70%~75% passing rate,three-pour methodbrewing, 2-minute extraction time.The Strawberry Candy brewed with these parameters also performs very appealingly! The aroma is very rich, the flavors are mainly cream, chocolate, strawberry, and blueberry, the taste is equally balanced between sweet, sour, and bitter, the mouthfeel is full-bodied, and the aftertaste is prominent and lingering—very nice!And if the espresso beans you're using are roasted darker, then Front Street would recommend grinding coarser still, and keeping the water temperature in the 86°C~88°C range, to avoid over-extraction due to excessive extraction efficiency~
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
