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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's development in China has grown increasingly massive, and the number of coffee drinkers has also grown larger and larger. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) has been growing along with it. Every time there are newcomers to the coffee scene, they can name the beans from famous producing regions on every continent.
 
 
1. Yirgacheffe (Front Street Gotiti)
 
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 for everyone. As is well known, Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. Yirgacheffe was originally a sub-region under the Sidamo producing area. Because the production methods and flavors of the coffee beans produced in Yirgacheffe town were too outstanding, Ethiopia took pride in this, and even branded beans from other producing areas with the name Yirgacheffe. Therefore, Yirgacheffe was separated from the Sidamo producing area and became its own independent category.

 
There is no need to say much about the characteristics of Yirgacheffe: its uplifting fruit 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 (FrontStreet Coffee) very much agrees with: as the coffee enters the mouth, a hundred flowers bloom. Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) Yirgacheffe Gotiti is exactly like this.
 

Front Street · Yirgacheffe Gotiti

 

 Producing area: Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia
Cooperative: Gotiti Cooperative
Altitude: 2000m～2100m
Variety: Local Heirloom
Processing method: Washed processing
Flavor: Citrus, black tea, floral, cream, caramel, almond

 
This Front Street Gotiti bean not only lets you taste the main flavor profile of Yirgacheffe, but also 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.
 

  
2. Kenya (Front Street Little Tomato)
 
Kenyan coffee is a god in the minds of many veteran coffee enthusiasts, a pearl of Africa. The varieties initially introduced to Kenyan coffee were Bourbon and India's Kent, and later Jamaica's 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 resistant to drought and pests, and is suitable for planting in medium-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 origin of Kenyan coffee's characteristic flavor of blackberry acidity and aroma comes not only from the phosphate-rich components in Kenya's local soil, but also from Kenya's most famous K72 washed processing method.

 
K72 washed processing method process: harvested coffee cherries are depulped and fermented. After 24 hours of fermentation, they are washed clean with water. They are soaked and fermented for 24 hours, then washed clean with water again, repeating this 3 times. This achieves 72 hours of strong fermentation.
 
Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) Kenya Asalia coffee beans use the K72 washed processing method, possessing a brighter, cleaner flavor. Yet its flavor is fuller.
 

Front Street Kenya Little Tomato
 

Producing area: Thika, Kenya
Processing station: Asali Processing Station
Altitude: 1550m～1750m
Variety: SL28, SL34
Processing method: K72 washed processing
Flavor: Snow pear, smoked plum, yellow sugar, cherry tomato, plum

 
3. Brazil (Front Street Queen's Manor)
 
Brazil ranks first in the world in coffee production. Coffee cultivation in Brazil began more than 300 years ago. In the 1720s, a Brazilian Portuguese captain used a seduction scheme 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 meters and 1600 meters, and because Brazilian coffee cultivation mostly uses sun-exposed planting, allowing coffee cherries to absorb enough heat and mature early, Brazilian coffee beans have low density, soft bean quality, and a soft-bean flavor. This forms a very sharp contrast with African coffee beans in flavor. The flavor of Brazilian coffee beans: low acidity, heavy nuttiness, good chocolate sweetness and body, but with a slight woody taste and earthy taste, and floral and orange aromas are not obvious. Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) baristas often recommend Brazil to friends who do not like acidity, precisely because Brazilian coffee is relatively mild, and it is not easy to taste the wild, assertive uplifting acidity and orange aroma of African beans.
 

Front Street Brazil Queen's Manor
 
 

 Producing area: Mogiana region, Brazil
Manor: Queen's Manor
Altitude: 1400m～1950m
Variety: Yellow Bourbon
Processing method: Natural processing
Flavor: Nuts, creamy peanut, cane sugar, fermented fruit

 
4. Indonesia (Front Street Golden Mandheling)
 
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 full-bodied and intense mouthfeel and flavor, with a distinct personality. 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 processing method easily produces fermented beans or moldy beans; in addition, local economic conditions are limited, and washed processing requires wasting a large amount of water. Therefore, Indonesian Mandheling mostly uses a semi-washed method with local characteristics, namely the wet hulling method.
 

Wet hulling, also known as Wet Hulling. The processing process of wet hulling: coffee cherries are depulped and put into water to soak for 1-2 hours, then rubbed against each other to remove part of the mucilage and undergo the first drying. At this time, the moisture content of the coffee beans drops to between 20% and 35%. The coffee beans with mucilage layer not yet solidified are collected and sent to the processing plant for a second drying. This step will reduce the moisture content of the coffee beans 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: "This is also a rare processing method in the world, accidentally creating Mandheling's special low-acidity, thick, and stuffy-aromatic flavor." Through years of cupping different wet-hulled Indonesian coffee beans, Front Street has found that the coffee's acidity is relatively low, the mouthfeel is thick, and it has unique flavors such as herbal spices, but the drawback is that the quality is relatively unstable. Of course, unstable quality cannot be entirely attributed to the wet hulling method; in most cases, it may be caused by the relatively poorer quality of some green coffee beans.
 

Front Street · Indonesia Golden Mandheling

Producing area: Gayo Mountain, Aceh, North Sumatra, Indonesia
Altitude: 1100m～1600m
Variety: Ateng
Processing method: Wet hulling
Flavor: Spices, nuts, pine, caramel, herbs, chocolate

 
5. Panama (Front Street Emerald Red Label Geisha)
 
Today, Geisha coffee is famous for its high price. The reason Geisha became famous is also because of Panama's Emerald Estate, which 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, 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 Emerald Estate on Front Street Coffee's (FrontStreet Coffee) bean list carry obvious floral aromas and delicate, elegant fruit acidity. Such an elegant flavor is also one of the reasons it has swept the world.
 

Front Street · Emerald Estate Red Label Geisha

  
Producing area: Boquete, Panama
Manor: Emerald Estate
Altitude: 1700+m
Variety: Geisha
Processing method: Natural
Flavor: Citrus, jasmine, honey, berries

 
6. Yunnan, China (Front Street 2013 Yunnan Typica)
 
In China, the history of tea is more than a thousand years longer than that of coffee, and the earliest definitively 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 variety initially planted in Yunnan was 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.
 
The coffee-growing regions of Yunnan 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. The average annual temperature in Lincang City is between 16.8 and 17.2°C. Dry and wet seasons are distinct, and sunshine is abundant. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) established its own estate in Lincang. In 2021, Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) produced its first self-produced coffee beans.
 

Front Street Yunnan Natural Typica
 

Producing area: Lincang, Yunnan, China
Manor: Yunnan Front Street Coffee Estate
Altitude: 1300m
Variety: Typica
Processing method: Natural processing
Flavor: Berries, brown sugar, nuts, tea-like quality

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