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A while ago, Front Street shared an article on how to make cold brew coffee, and afterwards many friends started asking in the background how to choose beans for cold brew. So today, let's analyze and answer this question for everyone.

As a low-temperature immersion extraction, as time extends, the variety of acidic compounds gradually decreases, so the sour and bitter taste of cold brew is greatly reduced. At the same time, it reduces the volatilization of coffee aroma, better locking in the fragrance and presenting a fuller and more balanced mouthfeel.

What flavor of cold brew do you want to drink!

"What flavor type of coffee do you usually like?" This is a question that baristas at Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) often ask customers who come to the shop. Then, based on the customer's preferences, they select suitable beans for brewing, such as: floral, fruity, or on the sour side, high sweetness, clean, or with some specific aroma, and so on.

Selecting floral and fruity beans

This type of description generally points to light to medium roast coffee beans. Africa and Central America, which are abundant in floral and fruity coffees, are our primary targets!

Bright fruity acidity: If this is the direction you want, we can choose washed processed coffee beans from Kenya, Ethiopia, and Panama. Washed coffee beans have a more uplifting acidity, and the bright fruit flavors give the cold brew a full juicy feel. For example, Front Street Kenya Asalia, Front Street Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Gudingding Cooperative, and Front Street Panama Boquete Geisha are this type.

Soft fruity notes: Natural processed coffee beans have higher sugar content than washed processed ones, so they have obvious sweetness, overflowing floral fragrance, and ripe tropical fruit flavors. After a long cold brew, the floral and fruity notes complement each other, and the fermentation note unique to natural processing is amplified. For example, Front Street Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry, Front Street Ethiopia Gesha Village Red Label, Front Street Panama Elida Typica, etc.

Selecting beans with specific flavors

Nowadays, in addition to traditional processing methods, in order to add richer aromas to coffee, producing regions have introduced many novel green bean processing methods. These processing techniques can make coffee beans exude certain very specific flavors, which is relatively friendly for beginners just starting out. If cold brew uses coffee beans with this type of processing, over time it will let these aromas brew into a cup of iced coffee with both a full mouthfeel and aroma. These coffee beans are distributed across a wide range of producing regions, so Front Street will list a few of the more famous ones!

Recommended cold brew coffee beans with obvious fruity aromas include: Front Street Ethiopia Dorothy (White Peach Oolong), Front Street Costa Rica Mirazu Estate Strawberry Candy Geisha Blend (strawberry, dried fruit), Front Street Costa Rica Monster Estate Blueberry (blueberry gummy)

Those with obvious floral aromas include: Front Street Colombia Rose Valley (rose, liqueur chocolate), Front Street Colombia Paradise Estate Sakura (chamomile)

Those with a tipsy wine aroma include: Front Street Honduras Sherry (whiskey aroma), Front Street Honduras Lychee Orchid (brandy aroma)

Selecting medium-dark roasted beans

For friends who don't want to drink something sour and sweet, Front Street recommends using medium-dark or dark roasted beans. Through long high-temperature roasting, the beans gradually lose their acidity, resulting in a coffee rich in caramel, spice, and chocolate flavors.

Medium-dark roast: Medium-dark roasted beans will not completely eliminate acidity, retaining a hint of acidity to make the overall mouthfeel of the cold brew more balanced. After being made into cold brew, the expression will be mainly chocolate flavors, with the soft acidity not standing out awkwardly within it. For example, Front Street Brazil Queen Estate, Front Street Guatemala Antigua Flower God, Front Street Papua New Guinea Bird of Paradise, Front Street Yunnan · Front Street 2013.

Dark roast: If you don't want any acidity at all and just want to enjoy the rich, silky smoothness brought by spices and chocolate, then dark roasted Front Street Indonesia PWN Golden Mandheling will be a great choice for you!

Adding appropriately, icing on the cake

Now that we've finished discussing the selection of coffee beans, let's share a little trick: when making cold brew, add a small proportion of osmanthus or jasmine flowers to give the cold brew a touch of elegant floral fragrance~

Although there are many coffee beans to choose from for cold brew, because it is slowly extracted under cold water, compared with hot pour-over, its flavor is ultimately relatively one-dimensional. Clever friends then thought of adding other auxiliary ingredients to provide the coffee with some unique aromas, such as dried flower petals, which are favored by many women.

Considering that cold brew has fewer intervening factors and is soaked in a static environment throughout, if you want the fragrant scent to enter the coffee and give it a touch of freshness, it is best to choose types with obvious floral aromas, such as osmanthus, jasmine, and rose. These three dried flowers are not only easy to come across in daily life, but also have higher compatibility with coffee flavors. However, although these dried flowers are full of aroma, their taste is relatively thin, so it is best to brew them together with light to medium roast coffee beans whose flavor profile points toward floral and fruity notes, so that the two can complement each other.

You can now purchase Front Street Coffee single-origin coffee beans and espresso blend coffee beans on Tmall "Front Street Flagship Store", 60 kinds of coffee beans from around the world, freshly roasted and shipped within 24H.

Tmall link: https://qianjieshipin.tmall.com

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