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The world's three major beverages are cocoa, tea, and coffee. Among them, coffee was introduced to China only over a hundred years ago, but it is only in recent years that coffee has begun to develop increasingly in China, and the number of coffee drinkers has grown larger and larger. Front Street Coffee has also been growing along with it. Whenever there are newcomers to the field, they can name the beans from famous producing regions on every continent.  

 Yirgacheffe 

Yirgacheffe is familiar to many who are just getting into specialty coffee. When it comes to Yirgacheffe, it is a very familiar Ethiopian coffee bean. As everyone knows, Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. Yirgacheffe was originally a sub-region under the Sidamo producing area. Because the coffee beans produced in the town of Yirgacheffe had a production method and flavor that were too outstanding, Ethiopia took pride in this, and even branded beans from other regions with the name Yirgacheffe. Therefore, Yirgacheffe was separated from the Sidamo producing area and became its own independent entity.

 There is no need to say much about the characteristics of Yirgacheffe: its uplifting fruity acidity, clean mouthfeel, and delicate, elegant floral aroma. In Teacher Han Huaizong's "Specialty Coffee Studies," the description of Yirgacheffe is one that Front Street Coffee greatly agrees with: "As the coffee enters the mouth, a hundred flowers bloom." Front Street Coffee's Yirgacheffe Gutingding is exactly like this.  

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Yirgacheffe Gutingding

 Region: Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia

Cooperative: Gutingding Cooperative

Altitude: 2000m–2100m

Variety: Local heirloom varieties

Processing method: Washed process

Flavor: Citrus, black tea, floral, cream, caramel, almond

 Front Street Coffee's Gutingding bean, besides allowing you to taste the main flavor profile of Yirgacheffe, also lets you experience its tea-like quality. Combined with its citrus acidity, it really feels like drinking lemon tea. Friends who like drinking lemon tea might as well give it a try.  

  Kenya  Ken

ya coffee is the god in the minds of many veteran coffee lovers, a pearl of Africa. The varieties first introduced to Kenyan coffee were Bourbon and India's Kent, and later the Jamaican Blue Mountain Typica variety was introduced and planted on Mount Elgon. Today, the most famous coffee bean varieties in Kenya are SL28 and SL34. These two varieties were selected, researched, and cultivated from Kenya's National Agricultural Laboratories (formerly the Scott Agricultural Laboratories).  

The SL28 variety is drought-resistant and pest-resistant, and is suitable for planting in mid- to high-altitude areas. SL34 is suitable for planting in high-altitude areas with sufficient rainfall. In terms of flavor, SL28 and SL34 are very similar, but SL34 has richer acidity and a more intense mouthfeel.

 The characteristic flavor of Kenyan coffee and the origin of its blackberry-like acidity come not only from the phosphate-rich composition of Kenya's local soil, but also from Kenya's most famous local K72 washed processing method.

 K72 washed processing method process: After harvesting, the coffee cherries are pulped and fermented. After 24 hours of fermentation, they are washed clean with water. They are then soaked and fermented for 24 hours, washed clean with water again, and this is repeated 3 times. This achieves a 72-hour strong fermentation.  

Front Street Coffee's Kenya Asaliya coffee beans use the K72 washed processing method, possessing a brighter, cleaner flavor. Yet its flavor is even fuller.  

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Kenya Little Tomato

Region: Thika, Kenya

Processing plant: Asali Processing Plant

Altitude: 1550m–1750m

Variety: SL28, SL34

Processing method: K72 washed process

Flavor: Snow pear, smoked plum, yellow sugar, cherry tomato, plum

  Brazil 

Brazil is the country with the world's largest coffee production. Coffee cultivation in Brazil began more than 300 years ago. In the 1720s, a Portuguese captain from Brazil used his charms to win the heart of the wife of the governor of Cayenne in French Guiana, successfully bringing coffee seeds into Brazil.

 Because Brazil's planting altitude is relatively low, between 400 and 1600 meters, and because Brazilian coffee cultivation mostly uses sun-exposed planting, allowing the coffee cherries to absorb enough heat and ripen as early as possible, Brazilian coffee beans have low density and soft bean texture, giving a soft-bean flavor. This forms a very sharp contrast with African coffee beans in terms of flavor. The flavor of Brazilian coffee beans: low acidity, heavy nutty notes, good chocolate sweetness and body, but with a slight woody and earthy taste, while floral and citrus notes are not obvious. Front Street Coffee's baristas often recommend Brazil to friends who do not like acidity, precisely because Brazilian coffee is relatively mild, and it is not easy to encounter the wild, domineering uplifting acidity and citrus notes of African beans.  

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Brazil Queen's Estate 

 Region: Mogiana Region, Brazil

Estate: Queen's Estate

Altitude: 1400m–1950m

Variety: Yellow Bourbon

Processing method: Natural process

Flavor: Nuts, creamy peanut, cane sugar, fermented fruit

 Indonesia

 Indonesian coffee is very familiar to many coffee beginners. Among them, Indonesia's kopi luwak is famous for its rarity and high price. The Indonesian coffee most easily accessible to the public is none other than Mandheling.  Mandheling coffee is mainly produced in the Sumatra region of Indonesia. Indonesian Mandheling coffee has a rich and strong mouthfeel and flavor, with a distinctive character. This unique flavor is related to the local coffee bean processing method, because Indonesia is located in Southeast Asia, with abundant rainfall year-round and shorter sunshine hours than Ethiopia and Brazil. Using the natural process easily produces fermented or moldy beans; in addition, local economic conditions are limited, and washed processing requires wasting large amounts of water. Therefore, Indonesian Mandheling mostly uses a locally distinctive semi-washed method, namely the wet-hulling method.  

Wet hulling, also called Wet Hulling. The process of wet hulling is: coffee cherries are pulped and placed in water to soak for 1–2 hours, then rubbed against each other to remove part of the mucilage and undergo the first drying, at which point the coffee beans' moisture content drops to between 20% and 35%. The coffee beans, whose mucilage layer has not yet solidified, are collected and sent to the processing plant for a second drying. This step brings the coffee beans' moisture content down to about 18%. After the second drying is completed, the parchment layer is removed, and a final drying is carried out until the moisture content is 11%.  

Teacher Han Huaizong once described the flavor characteristics of wet-hulled coffee beans in a book like this: "This is also a rare processing method in the world, accidentally creating Mandheling's special low-acidity, thick, and muffled-aroma flavor." Through years of cupping different wet-hulled Indonesian coffee beans, Front Street has found that the coffee has relatively low acidity, a thick mouthfeel, and unique flavors such as herbal spices, but the drawback is also that the quality is relatively unstable. Of course, unstable quality cannot be entirely attributed to the wet-hulled method; in most cases, it may be caused by the relatively poorer quality of some green coffee beans.

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Indonesia Golden Mandheling

Region: Gayo Mountain, Aceh, North Sumatra, Indonesia

Altitude: 1100m–1600m

Variety: Ateng

Processing method: Wet-hulled process

Flavor: Spices, nuts, pine, caramel, herbs, chocolate

  Panama 

Today, Geisha coffee is famous for its high price. The reason Geisha became famous is also because of Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda. Hacienda La Esmeralda is both the discoverer and promoter of Geisha. The Geisha variety entered Panama in the 1960s, but after more than 40 years of quietly building strength, it finally won first place in the BOP in 2004 and became world-famous, even becoming the supreme treasure in the eyes of many specialty coffee lovers.

 The delicate and elegant flavor of the Geisha variety comes from a specific growing environment. The Geisha variety is very picky about its growing environment: high planting altitude, shade cultivation, and fertile soil. It is precisely these factors that make the Geisha coffee from Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda on Front Street Coffee's bean list carry obvious floral aromas and delicate, elegant fruity acidity. Such an elegant flavor is also one of the reasons it has swept the world.

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Hacienda La Esmeralda Red Label Geisha

  Region: Boquete, Panama

Estate: Hacienda La Esmeralda

Altitude: 1700+m

Variety: Geisha

Processing method: Natural process Flavor: Citrus, jasmine, honey, berries

 Yunnan, China 

In China, the history of tea is more than a thousand years longer than that of coffee, and the earliest traceable history of coffee circulation in China dates back to 1870. The history of coffee cultivation in Yunnan, China, is controversial: one account says 1902; one says 1892; and another says 1904.  

The coffee varieties planted in Yunnan were initially Typica, but with the opening-up policy, international giants such as Starbucks and Nestlé entered Yunnan and promoted the planting of the Catimor variety, which has strong disease resistance and high yield but poor flavor.

Over time, Yunnan small-bean coffee evolved from the former Typica variety into today's Catimor variety.  Yunnan's coffee-growing regions are mainly distributed in the southwestern part of Yunnan Province: Lincang, Baoshan, Pu'er, and Dehong. Lincang borders Pu'er to the east, Dali to the north, Baoshan to the west, and Myanmar to the southwest. Lincang's average annual temperature is between 16.8 and 17.2°C. Dry and wet seasons are distinct, and sunshine is abundant. Front Street Coffee established its own estate in Lincang. In 2021, Front Street Coffee released its first self-produced coffee bean.

Front Street Yunnan Natural Typica 

Region: Lincang, Yunnan, China

Estate: Yunnan Front Street Coffee Estate

Altitude: 1300m

Variety: Typica

Processing method: Natural process Flavor: Berries, brown sugar, nuts, tea-like

Site recommendations: Yirgacheffe Huakui Coffee Geisha Coffee Bourbon Coffee Blue Mountain Coffee Bird of Paradise Coffee Beans Mandheling Coffee Beans PWN Golden Mandheling Starbucks Menu Coffee Bean Types

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