You often hear people say, "To judge whether an espresso tastes good, just look at the crema. The best espresso has a crema that is fine, thick, and golden." But can you really judge whether an espresso tastes good by the state of its crema? To find out whether this method works, Front Street only needs to give everyone two questions. [more…]

Black coffee is simply coffee with no sugar, milk, or other additives. The Americano, pour-over coffee, and black coffee made from freeze-dried powder that we commonly see are all types of black coffee. Today Front Street Coffee will talk about the most popular type of black coffee: the Americano. Where does the Americano come from? The ingredients for an Americano are very simple, [more…]

As a well-known beverage in the coffee world, Americano—made with just espresso and water (or iced water)—can be found in almost every café and is a must-order star item. People love Americano for many reasons: it could be for a caffeine boost, to quench thirst, to cool down, or perhaps to satisfy [more…]

For more specialty coffee knowledge, please follow: Front Street Coffee (Frontsteet Coffee). Experienced coffee enthusiasts know that the coffee beans used in specialty coffee are all Arabica variety coffee beans, which have a lower caffeine content than Robusta variety coffee beans, and therefore perform in coffee flavor cupping [more…]

A proper espresso will have a delicate golden-brown foam floating on its surface, which Italians call Crema. It is the hallmark of espresso, yet it is often mistaken as the sole criterion for judging whether a coffee is good or bad. What exactly this layer of foam is and how it forms are worth discussing carefully. What is Crema? [more…]

Front Street Coffee has found that many friends always run into this problem when they first start learning coffee brewing: they find that the coffee they brew doesn't taste good, but they can't quite say exactly what's wrong with it. To be honest, if we want to brew a good cup of coffee, besides learning the underlying logic of brewing and mastering the correct extraction parameters, [more…]

At Front Street Coffee shops, we often meet friends who have been teaching themselves pour-over coffee at home and come to discuss brewing-related questions with us. Many of them say that although the parameters they use are exactly the same as those we recommend in the shop, the coffee they brew always tastes inconsistent—sometimes good, sometimes bad—and they have no idea where the problem lies. In cases like this, [more…]

Nobody wants to ruin their own coffee, especially specialty coffee beans that aren't cheap. Nobody wants to drink a cup of terrible coffee, but with these common mistakes, if you hit even one of them, no matter what you use, it's not just a wasted pot of coffee—if you never realize where the problem lies, then you will [more…]

A decade ago, when people talked about Yunnan coffee, many still thought of it as "instant coffee raw material"; today, opening the bean list of any specialty coffee shop, Yunnan origins appear more and more frequently. What happened in between? Are Yunnan beans really worth drinking? Yunnan's foundation as a growing region is not bad at all—Yunnan lies within the coffee-growing belt, with high alt [more…]

People nowadays enjoy drinking coffee not only in coffee shops, but more often they want to buy coffee beans and brew a cup carefully at home, savoring it slowly. However, how should the coffee beans or ground coffee you buy be stored so that they don't go bad so quickly? How can you better preserve their fresh flavor? Especially when you've bought some specialty coff... [more…]

The crema performance of espresso differs noticeably across growing regions. Mandheling, Brazil, and Blue Mountain are three representative origins, each with its own crema characteristics, suited to drinkers with different taste preferences. Mandheling is the choice for crema thickness. The Mandheling region uses wet-hulling processing, during which more pectin layer remains on the surface of the beans, add [more…]

“Espresso mixed with pour-over—how do you make it taste good?” Yes, you read that right! When Front Street Coffee heard this “staple with staple” question at the store before 5 p.m. yesterday, they were also taken aback, because such a question is truly unheard of. After some further investigation by Front Street Coffee, it was discovered that this customer friend had originally [more…]

If you have no idea about pour-over coffee but still want to drink coffee, what should you do? You might want to try drip bag coffee, which is convenient, quick, and simple. But a reminder: don't just throw the drip bag into water, or soak it together with the paper tag on top, because that way the coffee will not only lack flavor but also taste bad. In addition, [more…]

Recently, due to the impact of bad weather in the local area of Honduras, the Honduras Coffee Research Institute (IHCAFE) is concerned about the future coffee output. According to the data released recently by the Honduras Forest Conservation Institu [more…]

In recent years, the domestic coffee industry has developed rapidly. Even when black swan events occurred and most industries were struggling, the domestic coffee market still maintained stable growth. So as an ordinary enthusiast, when faced with merchants' marketing claims, how should one evaluate a coffee bean? When drinking coffee and buying coffee beans, [more…]

Speaking of flannel filter cloth, many friends may have only seen it in some Japanese films and TV dramas or in Japanese-style brewing introduced by bloggers, and have never actually used it. Because compared to filter cloth, the vast majority of people use filter paper and filter cups, this mainstream filtering tool, when brewing coffee. Ways to get to know flannel filter cloth [more…]

Front Street Coffee believes that different roasting degrees will produce different flavor profiles, but many people have a misconception: is it enough to simply roast coffee beans to a certain roast color? Of course not—the flavor of coffee is not just about the roast degree, but also about the growing region. [more…]

If you want to learn how to brew coffee, you must first learn how to drink coffee. Of course, "learning to drink coffee" here does not mean being able to describe gorgeous flavor notes; it is more about being able to judge whether a cup of coffee is good or bad—that is, whether it tastes good or not. Whether a coffee tastes good or not, subjectively and objectively, depends to a fairly large extent on personal preference. [more…]

In coffee history, the specialty coffee wave and its three waves form the basic understanding people have of coffee. People often compare and contrast specialty coffee beans with commercial coffee beans, as if the two were opposites. So what are the differences and connections between them? To understand the differences between the two, we must first understand specialty coffee's [more…]

Many baristas mysteriously reach a consensus among themselves: to tell whether a café is good or bad, just order a Flat White and you'll know—if the Flat White is well made, the other coffees will basically be above standard too. When asked why, these baristas reply: because this is the milk coffee most prone to "mistakes." The most controversial Ita- [more…]