With international freshly ground coffee brands like Starbucks and Costa opening directly operated stores in China, a coffee craze has risen domestically. Numerous merchants continuously make a big deal out of coffee beverages. Besides the relatively high-consumption freshly ground coffee, the popularity of平民化的 instant coffee and coffee drinks is also very high. So how many mainstream types of coffee drinks are there mainly now? How do they taste? Below, Front Street Coffee gives a brief introduction.
Americano
Americano belongs to a type of black coffee, composed of espresso + water, with no other added ingredients. During World War II, coffee was very popular among the US military. Americans were not used to the strong bitter taste of espresso, so they diluted the coffee liquid with water to achieve a concentration they could accept. Later, Italians who opened coffee shops in the US also "did as the Romans do" and introduced a "watered-down coffee" based on espresso, and afterward this coffee became very popular.
Americano has no fixed ratio; each store will have its own production standards, aiming to present the flavor and mouthfeel of the coffee. According to the ratio repeatedly tested and blended by Front Street Coffee, 1:6, pour 40 grams of coffee liquid into 240 grams of hot water at 88°C, and hot Americano is ready. If making iced Americano, replace the hot water with 120 grams of ice cubes and 120 grams of room-temperature water; the taste is best before the ice melts. Front Street Coffee's iced Americano presents a rich whiskey aroma, the sweet-tartness of berries, refreshing and cutting through richness, so it is especially popular in the stores in hot Guangzhou; hot Americano highlights the mellow richness of roasted nuts and chocolate, the fermented sweet-tartness of tropical fruits, with a vanilla finish.
Latte
About 60% of coffee drinks on the market are under the banner of latte. The most important reason is that latte is a coffee drink relatively easy for Chinese people to accept, because latte uses sweet milk as the base and adds espresso, so even Chinese consumers who are not used to drinking coffee can accept it.
The ingredients of latte are very simple; only espresso and milk are needed. It also has no fixed ratio, and most range from 1:5 to 1:8. Front Street Coffee uses a 1:6 ratio, 40g espresso liquid, adding 240g milk. When producing hot latte, Front Street Coffee adds the espresso liquid to a preheated coffee cup, then uses an espresso machine steam wand to froth the milk. The milk temperature is best controlled at 55-65°C, so that it forms fine, dense milk foam with a moderate thickness, then evenly integrates with the coffee liquid. The final latte art is the icing on the cake. Front Street Coffee's hot latte presents the sweet aroma of liqueur chocolate, creamy and smooth. Front Street Coffee's iced latte first adds 75 grams of ice cubes + 25ml of fresh milk, then extracts 40 grams of coffee liquid and pours it on top. Before drinking, customers are reminded to stir thoroughly.
Cappuccino
Cappuccino, like latte, is composed only of milk and coffee, with very fine and rich milk foam on top. In earlier years, cappuccino generally followed a ratio of espresso, milk, and milk foam of 1:1:1, but if we make cappuccino according to this standard, the concentration is very high, and the milk foam layer is so thick that it is difficult to drink the coffee. The biggest difference between cappuccino and latte is that the essence of cappuccino is the fine milk foam providing a full and delicate mouthfeel. The milk foam and espresso are integrated and poured until the coffee reaches 11 parts full.
Front Street Coffee's cappuccino mainly ensures these points: a small cup size of 180ml, 11 parts full, rich coffee flavor, and dense thick milk foam. That is, with a double espresso as the base, froth 150ml of milk into thick milk foam and integrate it in. Front Street Coffee's cappuccino tastes of rich chocolate milk flavor, and the dense milk foam adds a lot of mouthfeel to the coffee.
Flat White
Flat White is also called "Aussie White," "Furui White," or "Flat White." Flat White coffee is a new product created by Australians by modifying the ratio parameters on the basis of hot latte, mainly with two differences.
The base used in Flat White is called Ristretto. Australians want a milk coffee with a stronger coffee flavor, believing that the latter part of espresso would "dilute" the coffee flavor, so they take only the middle and front sections of the espresso and "restrict" the latter section, which is why it is called Ristretto. When we drink Flat White, it is not hard to notice that its cup volume is smaller than that of hot latte. With the coffee liquid reduced, after integrating the same amount of milk as latte, it is difficult to highlight the coffee flavor, so the proportion of hot milk is also reduced. The heated milk is frothed into thin milk foam and evenly integrated. Without a thick layer of milk foam, the coffee is generally level with the rim of the cup, so it is called "Flat White," also translated as "平白." Flat means "level," and White refers to the white coffee with milk added.
Front Street Coffee's Flat White is generally made by extracting a double ristretto of about 30g from 20g of coffee powder, pouring it into a 200ml cup as the base, and adding milk at a ratio of 1:5, that is, 150ml of hot milk. The frothed milk foam should be as thin as possible, so as to highlight the rich mouthfeel of the coffee.The Flat White produced by Front Street Coffee stores not only has the flavors of whiskey aroma, cream, and vanilla, but also has a berry-like sweet-tartness, showing a full coffee aroma.
Mocha
Besides the above "basic" espresso coffees that only add water and milk, syrups of different flavors can also be added. For example, mocha coffee, named after Mocha, the place where coffee became famous, is a very popular one. Classic mocha coffee flavor has a rich dark cocoa aroma. To highlight this characteristic, espresso mocha adds chocolate sauce/chocolate powder/chocolate chunks. When Front Street Coffee makes hot mocha, it adds 15g of chocolate sauce to the espresso, stirs it thoroughly and evenly, then pours in frothed hot milk to integrate and make latte art, and finally can also sprinkle a layer of cocoa powder on the surface to add chocolate aroma and mouthfeel. Iced mocha is made by adding 15g of chocolate sauce to the espresso of an iced latte.
Pour-over Coffee
Pour-over coffee first grinds coffee beans into powder, then evenly pours hot water from a kettle to contact the coffee bed, "dissolving" out the substances in the coffee. In fact, it uses a dripper with filter paper or other tools to filter out the coffee grounds so they do not enter the lower pot together, thus obtaining a cup of black coffee with a clear taste. There are many types of beans suitable for pour-over coffee. With different varieties, origins, and processing methods, and as the brewer understands and adjusts the parameters, the flavor and mouthfeel characteristics of the coffee change more or less, and the taster can feel the purest aroma of coffee. Dozens of single-origin coffee beans on Front Street Coffee's bean list can all be extracted by pour-over.
Professional coffee knowledge exchange. For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style).
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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
