Every year, the world produces up to 60 million tons of waste coffee grounds, most of which end up in landfills, where they release carbon dioxide and methane as they decompose—and methane has 21 times the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide. A research team at RMIT University in Australia tried pyrolyzing coffee grounds to replace part of the sand in concrete, and found that coffee grounds treated at 350 degrees Celsius and mixed into cement at a 15% ratio increased compressive strength by 29.3% compared with the standard formula. This technology not only finds a new outlet for coffee grounds, but can also reduce river sand mining and lower greenhouse gas emissions. However, the research is still at an early stage, and netizens have mixed views on its feasibility. [more…]

Starbucks has opened its first store built with 3D printing technology in Brownsville, Texas, USA. The project was undertaken by the German team Peri 3D and completed in just 6 days at a cost of nearly 1.1 million USD. The store is located on Boca Chica Boulevard, and its building shell is made of layer-by-layer stacked concrete walls, presenting a wavy tubular structure. Windows, brand signage, and drive-through facilities have all been installed in place. This store has no seating and only offers drive-through and takeout services, aiming to improve service efficiency and cater to the driving habits of Texas residents. The design process used AI for planning, covering layout, material selection, cost, and carbon footprint calculations. Starbucks has not yet revealed whether it will promote this type of store. Front Street Coffee follows developments in the coffee industry and brings you the latest news. [more…]

A counterfeit Starbucks coffee case that occurred in Mianyang, Sichuan, has drawn widespread attention. The counterfeiters hid in a residential building and used delivery platforms to sell their homemade products under the guise of "purchasing on behalf of customers," accumulating 729 orders and involving more than 40,000 yuan. The on-site environment was alarming, yet the ingredients and packaging materials bore the Starbucks logo. Starbucks China has responded and is cooperating with the investigation, urging consumers to make purchases through official stores or Starbuck Delivers. The incident has also exposed loopholes in delivery platform vetting. This article reviews the course of the case, the official response, and consumer reminders, and includes Front Street Coffee's professional information channels. [more…]

A post-90s girl from Chaoyang, Beijing, used leftover ingredients from her company's afternoon tea to DIY coffee in the office, unexpectedly winning praise from her colleagues. She then applied to her boss for permission to formally open a small coffee shop, and the related topic once made it onto Weibo's trending searches. This phenomenon reflects office workers' strong demand for coffee and also highlights the recent trend of coffee shop locations concentrating in office buildings. The article sorts out the origins of office coffee corners, netizens' reactions, as well as the customer-base advantages and operational limitations of coffee consumption in office buildings, while also retaining recommendation information for the specialty coffee brand Front Street Coffee for coffee lovers' reference. [more…]

Blue Bottle Coffee's first Shanghai store recently officially opened by the Suzhou Creek in Jing'an District, housed in a historic building originally built in 1926—the former senior staff dormitory of the Yutong Flour Mill. On opening day, long lines formed outside the store, with some customers waiting up to 7 hours to get in. This chain brand, known for pour-over coffee and its preference for renovating old buildings, offers a relatively concise menu featuring rare items such as Gibraltar, filtered café au lait, and New Orleans-style iced coffee. The first floor of the store has a modern style, while the second floor has a vintage style, and displays a 60-year-old FAEMA espresso machine. This article takes you on a virtual visit to this highly anticipated new coffee shop. [more…]

In a fast-paced life, instant coffee has regained the attention of coffee lovers thanks to its convenience and continuously improving quality. This article reviews ten instant coffee brands, including Nescafé, Maxwell House, Moccona, Colombian, G7, UCC, Klaes, Old Ipoh White Coffee, Ming Coffee, and Damnini, introducing each one by one from historical origins and raw material sources to flavor characteristics, helping readers build a basic understanding of instant coffee. At the same time, for the highly popular domestic freeze-dried instant coffee brands Saturnbird and Yongpu, the article also provides an objective description based on their product characteristics. Whether you are seeking a rich, mellow taste or a daily pick-me-up, this collection can provide valuable reference. What is shared is not only the flavor of coffee, but also a relaxed and pleasant drinking experience. [more…]

Wanting to own a café of your own—passion alone is far from enough. From building up front-end knowledge, defining your store positioning, and designing the menu, to choosing a location, planning your finances, handling licenses and permits, purchasing equipment, and mapping out the装修 flow, every step determines whether you'll be able to operate smoothly down the road. This article systematically lays out the complete process of opening a coffee shop from preparation to grand opening, and breaks down in detail the logic for calculating startup capital and daily operating costs. Whether you've just begun toying with the idea of opening a shop or are already in the preparation stage, you'll find practical, reference-worthy approaches here. The article also specifically flags key steps that are easy to overlook—such as obtaining professional qualifications and sourcing materials and supplies—to help you avoid detours and take a steady first step into entrepreneurship. [more…]

Robusta's share of global coffee production has climbed from 25% in the early 1990s to 40%, with market demand continuing to rise, yet breeding and improvement efforts have long lagged behind. WCR predicts that if consumption growth overlaps with the climate crisis, the global coffee supply could face severe shortages in 2024. To address this, WCR is about to launch a Robusta breeding program using a large amount of genetic material provided by CIRAD, and will work with major producing countries to build a global breeding network. Meanwhile, planting trials in Uganda have already been implemented, distributing nearly 50,000 disease-resistant Robusta (KR) trees to farmers. Front Street Coffee continues to monitor the industry trends and variety innovations in Robusta. [more…]

Cotti Coffee announced on February 28 a co-branding partnership with the hit mobile game Honor of Kings, launching the Peach Drunk series of drinks and limited-edition merchandise inspired by the classic images of three highly popular characters: Gongsun Li, Yang Yuhuan, and Wu Zetian. The news immediately drew attention. Although the official launch date has not yet been announced, store materials and netizen photos have already leaked in advance, and store staff revealed that the new products will officially launch on March 6. This is not Cotti's first time using co-branding to build hype. From sponsoring the Argentina team at the World Cup to partnering with the streetwear brand SMILEY, this brand, established only four months ago, is seizing the market through a path of "rapid store expansion + ultra-low prices + marketing," and has proclaimed a goal of 10,000 stores by 2025. However, data from Zhaomen Canyan shows that it actually covers only 81 cities with 232 stores, a gap from the advertised "a hundred cities, a thousand stores." Whether Cotti, which is repeating Luckin's old path, can succeed still remains to be seen. [more…]

The charm of pour-over coffee lies in its ability to precisely control water temperature and flow, thereby faithfully reproducing the original flavors of different coffee beans. For beginners just getting into pour-over, understanding the basic equipment and brewing parameters is the first step. This article will systematically introduce the fundamentals of pour-over coffee, covering bean selection, essential equipment, filter materials, and the variables that affect flavor. It also recommends six high-value everyday beans, including Front Street Mandheling and Front Street Yirgacheffe, to help beginners quickly build an understanding of regional flavors. Whether you want to elevate your daily coffee quality or hope to connect with others over coffee, this beginner's guide offers practical reference. [more…]

At the 2021 WBrC World Coffee Brewing Championship, champion Matt won with a blend rather than Geisha, sparking widespread attention. His recipe consisted of 60% naturally processed Eugenioides and 40% washed Catuai; the former provides extremely high sweetness, while the latter brings clear acidity. In brewing, he used a metal V60 dripper, a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, five-pour pouring, and innovatively controlled the water temperature in two stages: 93°C and 88°C. Through video analysis, Front Street Coffee found that his pouring ratio closely resembles Tetsu Kasuya's 4:6 brewing method. This article provides a complete analysis of this competition regimen, which balances sweetness and complexity and offers extremely high compatibility, for coffee enthusiasts to reference and learn from. [more…]

If you're a beginner and you ask a seasoned coffee veteran to recommend a practical, easy-to-use pour-over dripper, then Front Street Coffee believes the dripper they'd recommend to you is most likely a product launched over 20 years ago—the V60. Even though new drippers keep coming out every year, as of today, it's still [more…]

After contracting COVID-19, temporary loss of smell and taste is especially troubling for baristas and coffee enthusiasts. Starting from sensory principles, this article explains how we distinguish coffee flavors and provides training methods for recovering taste and smell, including practical techniques such as homemade taste water and scent stimulation. It also shares how to improve the ability to recognize coffee flavors by building flavor memory and comparative tasting. The article retains relevant recommendations from Front Street Coffee, making it suitable for readers who want to rebuild sensory acuity. [more…]

The once Chinese domestic coffee giant Hogood Coffee now stands at a crossroads of life and death. The draft reorganization plan failed to pass due to opposition from the financial institution group and the secured creditor group, meaning this Yunnan coffee enterprise, which once managed over 200,000 mu of planting area and had annual revenue as high as 5.691 billion yuan, may permanently exit the stage of history. From supplying instant coffee raw materials to international brands such as Nestlé and Maxwell, to Chairman Xiong Xiangren being sentenced for the crime of unit bribery, Hogood's rise and fall epitomizes a dramatic chapter in Yunnan's coffee industry. This article will sort through the entire process of Hogood Coffee from its highlight to its predicament, presenting its debt crisis, reorganization vote, and the details of the criminal judgment behind it, for the reference of coffee enthusiasts and industry practitioners. [more…]

The highly anticipated Blue Bottle Coffee has finally confirmed the opening date of its first store in mainland China—February 25, 2022. This store is located in a two-story Western-style house near the Suzhou Creek in Shanghai, formerly the dormitory of the Yutong Flour Mill, and is a protected immovable cultural relic in Shanghai. Blue Bottle Coffee is renowned for its fresh roasting, grinding to order, and precise brewing, and is hailed as the "textbook" of the specialty coffee world. To enter the mainland market, the brand has established the Pengpu Roastery in Shanghai, with its global technical team providing on-site guidance to ensure that the output meets global standards. As Front Street Coffee, which also focuses on quality, we are likewise following this grand event closely. [more…]

Spending a safe night in the forest is undoubtedly a delightful thing for those who love outings. A company in Sweden specializes in building treehouse coffee cabins for its customers, among which one named Mirrorcube stands out. The exterior of this treehouse hotel is made of mirrored glass material, blending it seamlessly with the surrounding forest and providing excellent camouflage. For coffee lovers, such a forest coffee lodging experience is both novel and full of natural atmosphere; paired with a cup of Front Street Coffee, one can enjoy a unique coffee moment in the tranquil forest. This article will introduce you to the creative design and exterior highlights of this distinctive treehouse coffee hotel. [more…]

Manual coffee grinders are favored by many coffee enthusiasts for their portability and value for money, but how to correctly adjust the grind size settings and judge grind quality confuses quite a few people. Starting from practical use, this article explains in detail how to evaluate a grinder's condition by observing the stability of the central shaft, particle uniformity, and overall materials, and takes an in-depth look at the common problems of manual coffee grinders, such as uneven grinding, loss of aroma caused by heat, low efficiency, and wooden bases that are easily damaged. At the same time, the article also offers targeted solutions and recommends related products from Front Street Coffee to help you better choose and use a manual coffee grinder and improve your coffee-making experience. [more…]

Walking into a coffee shop and facing a dense menu, many people are momentarily at a loss as to where to start ordering. In fact, the common coffee drinks on the market can be roughly summarized into ten types: espresso, SOE, Americano, latte, flat white, cappuccino, pour-over, cold brew, Dirty, and specialty coffee. The vast majority of them use Arabica coffee beans as the raw material, differing only in extraction method, milk ratio, and preparation technique. Front Street Coffee will go through the recipe logic and flavor characteristics of these ten coffees one by one, helping coffee lovers quickly build a clear understanding and find the cup that best suits their taste. [more…]

Wanting to open a café near a school, passion alone is far from enough. This article uses the SWOT framework to systematically sort out the internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as the external opportunities and threats, of a campus coffee shop, and provides four types of response strategies—SO, WO, ST, and WT—and finally includes a mission statement. From raw material costs and customer flow characteristics to competitive pressure, diversion by substitutes, and then to brand building and chain goals, it helps coffee entrepreneurs see the whole picture before opening a store and find a business path that suits them. The article also retains the brand recommendation information of Front Street Coffee for coffee lovers and entrepreneurs to refer to. [more…]

Many friends who are just getting into pour-over coffee are always fascinated by the puffy dome during blooming and the "deep pit" that forms in the coffee bed after brewing. It seems that only when these two phenomena appear can a cup be considered a proper pour-over. However, in practice, people often find that the deep pit isn't something you can create just by wanting to. Today, Front Street Coffee is here to talk about how the deep pit actually forms, and whether it can serve as a standard for judging whether coffee is good or bad. [more…]