Many friends have sent private messages to Front Street, asking Front Street 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. For this reason, Front Street has recommended 10 coffee beans from different producing countries.

11. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 Coffee Beans

Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee, even friends who have not deeply explored coffee have heard of its great name. Blue Mountain coffee is tied to words such as rare, expensive, and high quality. Blue Mountain coffee beans belong to the earliest batch of famous beans known worldwide for quality. In the last century, they had the title of king of coffee beans. Relative to coffee beans at that time, Blue Mountain coffee followed a high-quality production model of intensive cultivation. Its excellent Typica variety, refined washing process, and unified grade classification made Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans superior to coffee beans around the world at that time.

Arriving in 2022, there are now many coffee beans more expensive than Blue Mountain, but its insistence on high-quality management over many years has not changed, thus forming the unique Blue Mountain flavor. Many merchants now sell Blue Mountain coffee marked on the packaging with words such as Blue Mountain flavor or Blue Mountain blend. These are not true Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans, but coffee beans from other origins used to simulate the taste of Blue Mountain.

Of course, Blue Mountain coffee beans are no longer hard to find in China now. Since 2011, China has officially imported Blue Mountain coffee beans. The Blue Mountain No. 1 coffee beans sold by Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) come from Clifton Farm, one of the planting sites initially certified by the Jamaica Coffee Industry Board for Blue Mountain coffee. Clifton Farm is located at an altitude of 1,310 meters, which is relatively high among Blue Mountain coffee growing areas, 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.

22. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) 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. In 2004, Hacienda La Esmeralda brought Geisha coffee beans for the first time to participate in the Panama BOP green bean competition and won the championship, making Hacienda La Esmeralda famous while the name Geisha also spread throughout the world.

If you want to say where Geisha coffee tastes the most authentic, then you still have to look at Hacienda La Esmeralda. Hacienda La Esmeralda's Geisha is also divided by flavor into Red Label (Esmeralda Special) and Green Label (Private Collection). Most of these Geishas come from the Jaramillo and Cañas Verdes estates under Hacienda La Esmeralda. The selected Geisha coffees are all planted above 1,650 meters. The difference between Red Label and Green Label is that Red Label can be traced to a specific plot, while Green Label does not emphasize plot division. Therefore, the owner cups the Geisha from each plot every year and classifies Red Label according to flavor performance.

The Red Label selected by Front Street comes from the Mario plot of Jaramillo Estate. This plot was precisely the production site where Geisha won the BOP championship in 2004, so the Geisha coffee here performs well. The batch selected by Front Street is a slow natural process batch. Front Street believes that naturally processed Red Label Geisha has better sweetness and fruit juice flavors.

The flavor characteristics of Front Street Hacienda La Esmeralda Red Label Geisha are ginger flower aroma, citrus juice, honey, and rose tea.

33. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) IndonesiaPWNGolden Mandheling Coffee Beans

Front Street Golden Mandheling is a selected top-grade coffee from the Indonesian green bean company Pawani. Importantly, Golden Mandheling is a trademark, a coffee brand built into one of Indonesia's top-tier coffees. For this reason, Pawani also searches throughout Sumatra and purchases excellent-quality coffee beans.

One reason Front Street Golden Mandheling's quality is guaranteed is that after processing is completed, it undergoes three rounds of manual sorting to ensure the defect count of green beans is reduced as much as possible, with plump and evenly sized beans.

Because of Golden Mandheling's high quality and its reputation, many beans pretending to be Golden Mandheling have also 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 by PWN Company. Imported Golden Mandheling coffee green beans come with a PWN Company certificate of authentication (to verify authenticity), and the jute bag specification for Golden Mandheling is 30 kg. Each batch has a corresponding number that matches the certificate.

The flavor characteristics of Front Street Golden Mandheling are rich aroma and mellow body, herbal, nutty, and dark chocolate flavors, with high cleanliness.

44. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Ethiopia Huakui Coffee Beans

Front Street Huakui coffee beans are very famous in China. In 2017, the Ethiopian green coffee company DW sent their naturally processed green coffee beans to the TOH competition held by the African Coffee Association, and this batch of coffee beans won the championship in the TOH competition. In the same year, Chinese green bean merchant Hongshun introduced this coffee bean into China. Also in that year's China Barista Championship, Li Jianfei used these beans to compete against many Geishas and won second place. Because Geisha coffee is also called geisha coffee, this coffee bean was named Huakui coffee, meaning the head of the geishas.

Front Street Huakui coffee is grown at an altitude of 1,200 meters. The superior growing conditions make the sugar content quite high, and only fully ripe red cherries are selected. During the natural drying process, manual turning is carried out continuously. Only strict processing creates such good coffee. It has very rich tropical fruit flavors, fermented aroma, and fruity aromas such as mango, strawberry, and passion fruit, with a mellow mouthfeel, solid acidity, and high sweetness.

55. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Kenya Little Tomato Coffee Beans

Kenya borders Ethiopia, but its coffee-growing history is not long, yet its quality is very high. Kenyan coffee is mainly grown in high mountains at altitudes around 2,000 meters. Rainfall, volcanic soil, temperature differences, and climate all nurture good flavor substances for coffee growth. The main planted varieties are SL28/SL34, artificially bred varieties that are also Kenya's star coffee varieties. Kenya adopts a double washing process lasting up to 72 hours: fermentation for 24 hours, then after washing, fermentation for another 24 hours, with three cycles reaching 72 hours, giving Kenyan coffee a very lively and bright acidity, bright, clean, and full-bodied. It has a very sweet berry-like acidic aroma and a charming red wine-like aroma.

This Kenya Little Tomato coffee from Front Street comes from the Asali processing plant. This processing plant is quite famous locally, and the coffee it processes has a distinctly prominent sweet-and-sour sensation of little tomato and smoked plum. It is highly characteristic of Kenyan coffee.

66. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Brazil Queen's Farm Yellow Bourbon

Queen's Farm is a famous specialty coffee estate in Brazil. In 2011, it won the championship in Brazil's COE competition, and its four estates under it have accumulated more than 20 awards of various sizes. The estate mainly grows the Yellow Bourbon variety, which appears yellow when ripe due to the influence of recessive genes. It has a mellow mouthfeel, a creamy smoothness, and obvious nutty and peanut flavors. This variety uses the natural process. Unlike Brazil's traditional pulped natural process, 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, during which manual turning is done 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 roasted this bean to a medium roast level. Compared with brewing some light-roasted coffee beans, this one can provide a better experience. It is also very easy to brew out a sucrose-like sweetness, while the coffee overall leans toward chocolate, creamy peanut flavors, making it relatively easy for people just starting to drink coffee to accept its taste.

The reason Front Street recommends this coffee bean is that it not only performs well in pour-over, but even when used in a moka pot, French press, or espresso machine, it still has good flavor performance. It is undoubtedly an all-purpose "jack-of-all-trades" in terms of value for money.

77. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Colombia Flower Moon Night Coffee Beans

This coffee comes from Colombia's famous specialty coffee Huila region and is a coffee bean processed by anaerobic natural method. First, the coffee beans are screened, likewise selecting good-quality coffee cherries, then placed into sealed stainless steel tanks, then carbon dioxide is injected to expel oxygen for low-temperature anaerobic fermentation. The low temperature extends the entire fermentation duration. Generally, under 15-20 days of anaerobic fermentation, the coffee develops better water activity, allowing it to develop better flavor, sweetness, and balance. Then the coffee cherries are sun-dried, during which the drying process must be monitored to avoid over-fermentation. Front Street Flower Moon Night coffee beans have a very obvious strawberry jam-like flavor, as well as chocolate and honey-like sweetness, with a rich mouthfeel.

88. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Honduras Sherry Coffee Beans

At Front Street's store, quite a few friends smell a rich wine aroma as soon as they enter. It is not that Front Street has started an early coffee late alcohol mode, but rather that the espresso blend used by Front Street, Warm Sun Blend, includes Sherry coffee beans. What they smell upon entering is actually the sherry wine aroma given off by the Sherry coffee beans.

Sherry was a very popular coffee in 2019. It likewise uses a non-traditional coffee processing method, specifically low-temperature fermentation in wine barrels, and therefore carries a very rich whisky aroma. Selected good-quality coffee cherries are pulped, then the coffee beans are placed into whisky barrels for low-temperature fermentation for 15-30 days, during which the coffee beans absorb the aroma of the barrels, and then the coffee beans are removed for air-drying. Therefore, this coffee bean has a very rich whisky aroma, and during brewing there is also a vanilla cream-like sweetness, tasting of wine-scented chocolate and honey.

99. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Yunnan Typica Coffee Beans

Yunnan is an important coffee-producing region in China. The main varieties planted here are Typica and Catimor, but at present, more than 90% are planted with Catimor. What is the difference between these two varieties? Typica has low yield and poor pest and disease resistance, but good flavor. Catimor has high yield and strong disease and pest resistance, but poor flavor. So although Typica was planted before, later, in pursuit of yield, Catimor was fully put into production.

If Yunnan truly wants to grow specialty coffee, it should start from the beginning, choose suitable places, choose suitable varieties, and use scientific green planting management. Front Street began growing coffee in Yunnan in 2013. Yunnan is located on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. In southern Yunnan, where coffee is suitable for growing, the altitude is mostly around 900-1,000 meters. Such an altitude makes it difficult to grow high-quality coffee beans. By a chance opportunity, Front Street found a patch of virgin forest in Lincang near the China-Myanmar border, where the altitude is 1,200-1,300 meters, and the hard conditions were sufficient. As for which variety to plant, Front Street chose Typica, because Typica is an excellent variety and had already been successfully planted in Yunnan as early as 100 years ago.

Growing coffee is a long process, and Front Street was crossing the river by feeling the stones, without full certainty of growing good coffee, but still went ahead without hesitation. In 2020, after 7 years of cultivation, Front Street harvested the first mass-production batch, 300 kilograms in total. Front Street did not use fancy processing methods, only the traditional natural process, which was also part of Front Street's verification of whether good coffee could be grown in Yunnan. After cupping, it had flavors of dried fruit sweetness, plum, yellow sugar, and chocolate. Front Street named this bean "Front Street 2013."

1010. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Costa Rica Mozart Coffee Beans

Costa Rica's Mozart has a sweetness like Kyoho grapes and has long been loved by many friends. This coffee bean uses a raisin honey process, allowing the coffee fruit to ferment slowly. Front Street uses a medium-light roast to highlight this bean's very rich raisin, rose, and fermented wine aroma flavors.

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