Many friends have messaged Front Street, asking us to introduce some representative good coffee beans. Front Street thought about it, and the most representative coffees are the more distinctive coffee beans from major producing regions. To this end, Front Street has recommended 10 coffee beans from different producing countries.
1、Front Street Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 Coffee Beans
Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee,even friends who haven't delved deep into coffee have heard of its name.Blue Mountain coffee is associated with rare,expensive,and high-quality words.Blue Mountain coffee beans belong to the earliest batch of famous beans known worldwide for their quality,and had the title of King of Coffee Beans in the last century,relative to the coffee beans of that time,Blue Mountain coffee followed a high-quality production model of intensive cultivation,excellent Typica variety,refined washed processing,uniform grading classification,making Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans superior to coffee beans worldwide at that time.
Entering2022year,now there are many coffee beans more expensive than Blue Mountain,but the insistence on high-quality management over the years remains unchanged,thus forming the unique Blue Mountain flavor.Now many merchants sell Blue Mountain coffee marked on the packaging with "Blue Mountain flavor",and "Blue Mountain blend" wording,none of which are真正的 real Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans,but imitations of Blue Mountain's taste using coffee beans from other origins.
Of course,now Blue Mountain coffee beans in China are no longer hard to find.Since2011year, China has officially imported Blue Mountain coffee beans,the Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans sold by Front Street Coffee come from Clifton Farm,which is one of the first planting sites certified by the Jamaica Coffee Board for Blue Mountain coffee.Clifton Farm is located at an altitude of1310meters,which is a relatively high altitude for growing Blue Mountain coffee,so the coffee beans produced here have a more excellent flavor.
The flavor characteristics of Front Street Blue Mountain Coffee are a mellow mouthfeel,balanced acidity, sweetness, and bitterness,with the charm of dark chocolate,and the aroma of caramel.
2、Front Street Panama Hacienda La Esmeralda Red Label Geisha Coffee Beans
This coffee is very well-known and is the current king of coffee, produced at Hacienda La Esmeralda in Panama.2004In year, Hacienda La Esmeralda first brought Geisha coffee beans to the Panama BOP green bean competition and won the championship, making Hacienda La Esmeralda famous while the name Geisha spread worldwide.
If you want to know where Geisha coffee tastes most authentic,then you have to look at Hacienda La Esmeralda, Front StreetHacienda La Esmeralda Geisha is divided into Red Label(Esmeralda Special)and Green Label(Private Collection).Most of these Geishas come from Hacienda La Esmeralda's Jaramillo and Cañas Verdes farms,and the Geisha coffee selected is grown at1650meters above,the difference between Red Label and Green Label is that Red Label can be precise to specific plots,while Green Label does not emphasize plot division.So,the owner cups each plot's Geisha every year,and classifies Red Label according to flavor performance.
The Red Label selected by Front Street comes from Jaramillo FarmMarioplot,which is exactly2004the year Geisha wonBOPthe championship,so the Geisha coffee here performs well.The batch selected by Front Street is a slow sun-dried processing batch,Front Street believes that sun-dried Red Label Geisha has better sweetness and fruit juice flavors.
Front StreetHacienda La Esmeralda Red Label Geisha flavor characteristics are ginger flower aroma, citrus juice, honey, rose tea.
3、Front Street IndonesiaPWNGolden Mandheling Coffee Beans
Front Street Golden Mandheling is a top coffee selected by the Indonesian green bean companyPawani. Importantly, Golden Mandheling is a trademark, built into Indonesia's top coffee brand. Therefore,Pawanialso searches and purchases high-quality coffee beans all over Sumatra.One reason Front Street Golden Mandheling coffee's quality is guaranteed is that after processing, it undergoes three manual screenings to ensure the defect count of green beans is minimized, with plump and uniform size.
Because of Golden Mandheling's high quality, its fame has grown,so many beans claiming to be Golden Mandheling have appeared. Front Street would like to add here that not just any Mandheling with large beans and few defects can be called Golden Mandheling. The Golden Mandheling trademark is owned byPWNcompany, and imported Golden Mandheling green coffee beans come with aPWNcompany certificate (to verify authenticity), and the burlap sack specification for Golden Mandheling is30kg, with each batch having a corresponding number matching the certificate.
Front Street Golden Mandheling's flavor characteristics are rich aroma and mellow,herbal,nutty,dark chocolate flavors,and high cleanliness.
4、Front Street Ethiopia Huakui Coffee Beans
Front Street Huakui coffee beans are very famous in China. In2017year, the Ethiopian green coffee company-DWcompany sent their sun-dried batch of green coffee beans to the competition held by the African Coffee AssociationTOH, and this batch of coffee beans won the championship inTOHthe competition.In the same year, Chinese green bean merchant Hongshun introduced this coffee bean to China. And in the same year's China Barista Championship, a contestantused this bean to compete against Geisha,and won the runner-up title.Because Geisha coffee is also called "Geisha" coffee,this coffee bean was named Huakui Coffee,meaning "the head of the Geisha".
Front Street Huakui coffee is grown at an altitude of2300meters, and the superior growing conditions make the sugar content quite high. Only fully ripe red cherries are selected, and during the sun-drying process, manual turning is continuously carried out. The strict processing creates such good coffee. It has a very rich tropical fruit flavor, fermentation aroma, and fruit aromas of mango, strawberry, passion fruit, etc. The mouthfeel is mellow, the acidity is solid, and the sweetness is high.
5、Front Street Kenya Little Tomato Coffee Beans
Kenya borders Ethiopia, but its coffee-growing history is not long, yet its quality is very high. Kenya coffee is mainly grown at high altitudes between2000meters, and rainfall, volcanic soil, temperature differences, and climate all nurture good flavor substances for coffee growth. The main variety grown isSL28/SL34, a manually bred variety and Kenya's star coffee variety. Kenya uses a double washed processing method, lasting72hours, fermenting for24hours, washing and then fermenting again for24hours, three cycles totaling72hours, giving Kenya coffee a very lively and bright acidity, bright, clean, and full. It has a very sweet berry-like acidity and a charming red wine-like aroma.
Front Street's Kenya Little Tomato coffee comes fromAsaliprocessing plant,which is quite famous locally,and the coffee processed has a distinctly noticeable little tomato,and dark plum sweet-tart taste.It has the flavor characteristics of Kenya coffee.
6、Front Street Brazil Queen Farm Yellow Bourbon Coffee Beans
Queen Farm is a famous specialty coffee farm in Brazil,2011won the championship in Brazil'sCOEcompetition, and its4farms have cumulatively won awards large and small up to20times. The farm mainly grows the Yellow Bourbon variety, which due to a recessive gene appears yellow when ripe, has a mellow mouthfeel, creamy smoothness, and prominent nut and peanut flavors. This variety uses the sun-dried processing method, different from Brazil's traditional semi-washed processing. The coffee cherries are washed and screened to remove defective beans of insufficient quality, then the selected good quality coffee beans are pulped, and then the coffee beans are directly sun-dried, with manual turning to prevent over-fermentation.
If you are a beginner just getting into freshly ground pour-over coffee, then this bean is very suitable for practicing brewing. Front Street roasts this bean to a medium roast level. Compared to brewing some light-roast coffee beans, this one offers a better experience. It is also very easy to brew out a sugarcane-like sweetness, and the coffee overall leans toward chocolate and creamy peanut flavors, making it easier for those just starting with coffee to accept its taste.
The reason Front Street recommends this coffee bean is that it not only performs well in pour-over, but also has good flavor performance in moka pots, French presses, and espresso machines, making it undoubtedly the"all-purpose" choice for value.
7、Front Street Colombia Sidra Coffee Beans
This coffee comes from Colombia's famous coffee-producing region—Huila, located in southern Colombia, spanning the Andes Mountains. The coffee-growing area is close to the equator, with higher altitudes than the north, so overall, the coffee's fruit acidity is more pronounced and bright. In recent years, thanks to the fame of the World Barista Championship, more and more high-quality Colombian coffees have taken center stage, among which Finca El Diviso is known for producing the excellent Sidra coffee variety.
Front Street Sidra coffee beans, the same as used by the World Barista Champion, come from Finca El Diviso, grown at an altitude of 1700m, and processed using a double anaerobic sun-dried method. After medium-light roasting, Front Street Sidra coffee exhibits a mouthful of rich passion fruit, grape, and dried fruit sweetness with a mandarin-like acidity, and after swallowing, an almond-like aftertaste remains in the mouth, successfully attracting a group of fans to repurchase.
8、Front Street Papua New Guinea Bird of Paradise Coffee Beans
In recent years, Papua New Guinea coffee has begun to enter the world's specialty coffee ranks representing Oceania with its unique high-quality washed Arabica beans, and even Starbucks Reserve has gradually included this island nation. You should know that Papua New Guinea beans have long been known as "Little Blue Mountain," showing their excellent quality. Front Street believes that the coffee grown in this country is called Little Blue Mountain coffee because Typica was introduced from Jamaica and planted there, and the growing environment has the same island climate and high altitude.
Front Street believes that the regional flavor of Papua New Guinea coffee is different from the spices, herbal, and deep notes of Indonesian coffee beans also in Asia, but instead has bright, sweet-tart, and floral-fruity aromas, closer to South American flavors.Like Blue Mountain coffee and Kona coffee,here mainly grows the ancientTypica variety,Typica coffee has its unique serene and clean flavor, as well as balanced characteristics, with high cleanliness in the mouthfeel. Front Street Bird of Paradise coffee uses a medium roast, allowing you to tastetoasted bread, nutty sweetness, and a slight citrus acidity bringing out a sweet-tart taste that forms a nice layering, with a unique spice and cocoa aroma in the aftertaste.
9、Front Street Yunnan Small-Bean Typica Coffee Beans
Yunnan is an important coffee-producing region in China, mainly growing Typica and Catimor varieties, but currently,over9percent are growing the Catimor variety.What is the difference between these two varieties?Typica has low yield,poor pest and disease resistance,but good flavor; Catimor has high yield,strong disease and pest resistance,but inferior flavor.So although Typica was planted before,later, to pursue yield,now most have switched to Catimor.
If Yunnan is to truly grow specialty coffee,it should start from scratch,choosing suitable locations,choosing suitable varieties,and using scientific green planting management.Front Street started growing coffee in Yunnan as early as2013year,Yunnan is located on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau,and the altitude in southern Yunnan suitable for coffee growing is mostly around900-1000meters,such an altitude makes it difficult to grow high-quality coffee beans.By a chance opportunity,Front Street found a primitive forest near the China-Myanmar border in Lincang,with an altitude of1200-1300meters,the hard conditions were sufficient.On what variety to plant,Front Street chose Typica,because Typica is an excellent variety,and as early as100years ago, there were successful planting records in Yunnan.
Growing coffee is a long process, and Front Street was crossing the river by feeling the stones, without full confidence of growing good coffee, but still went ahead without hesitation. In2020year, after7years of cultivation, Front Street harvested the first mass-production batch, totaling300kilograms. Front Street did not use fancy processing methods, only traditional sun-drying, which is also part of Front Street's verification of whether good coffee can be grown in Yunnan. After cupping, it has flavors of dried fruit sweetness, plum, brown sugar, and chocolate.This bean is named by Front Street"Front Street2013".
10、Front Street Costa Rica Mozart Coffee Beans
When producers use honey processing to process green beans, they first pour the fresh coffee cherries into a water tank for flotation, removing underripe fruits and impurities, then use a depulper to remove the outermost layer of the fruit. At this point, they do not use large amounts of water to wash away the mucilage, but保留 the mucilage for drying. Because the mucilage contains sugar and is sticky, it is easily associated with honey, hence the name honey processing. Compared to the washed method, honey processing requires no large amounts of fresh water and related equipment, and also reduces the negative flavors caused by long exposure to sunlight. Moreover, honey-processed coffee generally presents full tropical fruit flavors and fermented sweetness, very popular among consumers in the market.
Front Street Costa Rica Mozart coffee uses a raisin honey processing method, which is a processing method that adds a slow fermentation step on top of honey processing, giving the coffee a Kyoho grape-like sweetness, and has long been loved by many friends. Front Street uses a medium-light roast, highlighting this bean's very rich raisin, rose, and fermented wine aroma flavors.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
