Coffee is more than just a beverage, and a café is more than just a place to drink coffee. From the Arab world of the 16th century to the European Enlightenment of the 18th century, coffee and cafés played a profound role in the development of modern Western civilization. Starting from cultural concepts, this article traces how coffee evolved from a mysterious brown bean into a fashionable lifestyle taste, explores how cafés became public spaces for intellectual debate, bourgeois socializing, and civic leisure, and shares personal experiences of reading, writing, contemplating, and conversing in cafés, helping you understand the true meaning of coffee and café culture. [more…]

Latte art is a romantic expression of a barista's skill, with white milk foam blooming into heart or leaf patterns on the surface of dark brown espresso. Latte art is divided into two types: free-pour latte art and etched latte art created after pouring. The wonder of the former lies in the pattern forming simultaneously with the pour, while the latter offers a wider range of designs because the stable foam allows for leisurely drawing. From a physics perspective, the core of latte art lies in surfactants—molecules that possess both hydrophilic and hydrophobic groups, capable of stabilizing the interface between air and liquid to form lasting foam. Milk proteins and coffee lipids act together as surfactants, enabling the two micron-scale foams to remain clearly separated for a long time after mixing, thereby allowing the pattern to persist. This article will guide you from the basic principles of surfactants to understand espresso's crema, the formation of hot milk foam, and why foam mixing rather than liquid mixing is the key to successful latte art, while also revealing the widespread applications of surfactants in daily life and industry. [more…]

Although it is troublesome to make and takes a long time, the siphon has ceased to be the mainstream brewing tool in coffee shops, but its visual appeal and the characteristics of the coffee it brews have always been a favorite topic among coffee folks. "Compared with pour-over coffee, coffee brewed with a siphon is fuller-bodied and more aromatic." This is what everyone [more…]

When IT thinking meets coffee culture, what kind of sparks will fly? In 2009, Bai Ya and a group of internet professionals founded Beta Coffee in Hangzhou, positioning it as a public living room for IT people. In just over two months, it was named the "Best Gathering Place for E-commerce Professionals." In 2011, this trend swept through Beijing's Zhongguancun, and Beta Coffee's Beijing branch officially opened. Soon after, Garage Coffee, 3W Coffee, and others emerged one after another, thus beginning the "Internet Coffee Era." This is not just a place to drink coffee, but also a physical platform for IT people to communicate, share, and seek opportunities. This article takes you into the jianghu stories of Beta Coffee, to experience the unique atmosphere created by the collision of the internet and coffee. [more…]

When code meets caffeine, what kind of sparks will fly? Beta Coffee started in Hangzhou, founded by IT entrepreneur Bai Ya and his partners, and quickly became a public living room for the internet circle. This trend then swept through Beijing's Zhongguancun, with Garage Coffee, 3W Coffee, and others springing up, ushering in the "internet coffee era." These places are not just for drinking coffee, but also a arena for IT people to network, recruit, and seek investment. This article will take you through the founding journey of Beta Coffee, its unique rules, and those warm yet persistent entrepreneurial stories, to feel the internet spirit that connects infinite possibilities behind a cup of coffee. If you also enjoy exploring coffee culture, please follow Front Street Coffee, where we continue to bring you heartwarming coffee stories. [more…]

Many people start their espresso journey with dark roast beans—rich caramel and dark chocolate, with a prominent, straightforward bitterness that, once combined with milk, becomes almost a liquid dessert. The barrier to entry is low, and it fits the general public's initial idea of coffee. But the world of coffee flavor is far broader than this stretch. As the number of shots pulled increases, many people naturally begin to [more…]

In recent years, the coffee market has been very interested in some rare or exclusive coffee varieties, and recently some special varieties have appeared in the public view through coffee competitions, among which there is the papaya variety (Papayo) [more…]

Geisha has made a big splash in recent years, and under the pursuit of enthusiasts, its price seems to be creating a historical high every year. With this kind of information, exactly what price should the Geisha coffee beans you buy reach before it [more…]

Every year, some coffee beans sell for jaw-dropping prices, sometimes with a single cup being hard to come by. These high-priced beans mostly come from auctions, among which BOP and COE are the two most closely watched platforms. How auctions actually work, and why they can fetch such high prices, is a fascinating entry point for understanding the specialty coffee ecosystem. BOP: Baha [more…]

Americano is one of the best-selling categories in coffee shops—quick to make, affordably priced, and able to perk up tired office workers. What flavors and mouthfeel does it actually have? Is hot Americano really that bitter? What effects and benefits does drinking Americano have? From the perspective of Front Street, this article first sorts out the historical origins and basic definition of Americano, then explains its brewing methods and the sources of its taste and mouthfeel, with a focus on analyzing how blended beans and SOE single-origin beans affect flavor. After that, for those who want to try it at home, Front Street uses its own bean list as an example to recommend a variety of blended and single-origin coffee beans suitable for making Americano, and offers practical advice on fresh roasting and extraction to help you find the cup that suits your taste. [more…]

There is a Yirgacheffe coffee with a very cute name, called "Gotiti," transliterated from Gotiti. Many people initially bought it out of curiosity to try it, but unexpectedly were amazed on the spot by its rich aroma and fresh taste, and thus became loyal fans. So what exactly is the charm that makes the public fall for [more…]

Recently, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a disease prevention agency in the Americas, due to the rise in global temperatures and the influence of extreme weather beans, the number of reported dengue fever cases in the Ameri [more…]

Having a De'Longhi machine in the office is a hard indicator of workplace happiness. But choosing beans for a shared coffee corner and for home follow two different logics: tastes vary and are hard to please, budgets are clearly divided between public and private, and no one takes the initiative to maintain it—the communal nature dictates a bean-selection strategy of "balance first." This article discusses bean selection and operation for an office De'Longhi coffee corner. The first principle [more…]

Those who have opened a shop and look back at their base beans will find a clear evolutionary line. Most people start with chain-style dark-roast blends, and after a year or two, the beans on the bar gradually shift toward medium roasts and specialty blends. This isn't fickleness of taste—it's that as a shop grows to different stages, the questions the base beans need to answer also [more…]

As a symbol of American culture, Starbucks rapidly went global after Howard Schultz took over, opening 17,600 stores in 61 countries. However, when Starbucks entered countries with deep cultural traditions such as China, India, and France, it frequently encountered cultural resistance and controversy. From being forced to withdraw from its Forbidden City store, to the long wait in the Indian market, to the French people's steadfast defense of traditional cafés, Starbucks, while exporting American coffee culture, has also had to face the stubborn resistance of local cultures. This article will walk you through Starbucks' path of cultural conflict and integration around the world, and explore the balance between business expansion and cultural respect. [more…]

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style). For more specialty coffee beans, please add our private WeChat: Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex. In Italian, [more…]

There is a milk coffee drink that rarely appears on the menus of domestic cafes, but in Australia it is as popular as the flat white—that is the piccolo coffee, known as the "small latte." The difference between piccolo coffee and flat white: Piccolo coffee originates from Australia; in "piccolo latte," "piccolo [more…]

For more specialty coffee knowledge, please follow our WeChat public account: FrontStreet Coffee. Some people believe that espresso made from single-origin coffee beans (SOE/Single Origin Espresso) must necessarily be better than [more…]

Open your phone, and you'll often see a cup of dark drink in some celebrity paparazzi photos—that's the legendary Americano. Some curious friends might ask: is Americano black coffee? Yes, Americano is a type of black coffee, and aside from milk coffee, Americano is the most popular [more…]

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean consultations, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account cafe_style). If you love drinking coffee, pour-over coffee is a skill you absolutely must master. Whether it's ordinary coffee beans or specialty coffee beans, pour-over coffee is one of the most widely used extraction methods. [more…]