It is a common consensus that the coffee beans used for espresso are generally roasted to a darker degree. Among coffee roast levels, there is one called "Italian Roast," with an Agtron color value of 25. It is the darkest of the 8 roast levels, and coffee beans of this type usually have a shiny layer of oil on their surface.

However, today's espresso beans are generally not that dark anymore. Taking Front Street Coffee's espresso bean series as an example, the common Agtron color value is 55, which is "City Roast" among the 8 roast levels.

What Front Street Coffee wants to try today is how light-roasted coffee beans perform when extracted as espresso. What we call light-roasted coffee refers to "Light Roast" and "Cinnamon Roast" among the 8 roast levels, with Agtron color values of 85-95.

Why didn't Front Street Coffee do this "fun experiment" before? Because Front Street Coffee previously used an old-fashioned coffee machine (the hero of opening the shop), which did not have many functions, and its performance in extracting light-roasted coffee was not ideal. Now that we have switched to a new-style coffee machine with more manual operation options, we can happily play around with experiments!

This experiment uses 3 kinds of beans, namely Front Street Coffee Huakui (natural), Front Street Coffee Godin Godin (washed), and Front Street Coffee Dorothy (enzyme washed); why are they all Ethiopian beans... because these beans all show bright fruit acidity when brewed as pour-over, and only by making them into espresso can we identify their similarities and differences.

First, test Front Street Coffee Huakui coffee beans. If you want to extract espresso with light-roasted coffee beans, please remember to first adjust the grind finer. Otherwise, you will see the following scenario:

At the 7th second of extraction: the flow rate is extremely fast

After 3 rounds of parameter adjustments, the extraction parameters for light-roasted Huakui were 20g dose, 8 seconds of pre-infusion, extracting 35g of coffee liquid at 6 bar pressure throughout, with a final time of 30 seconds. The espresso gives off a sweet berry aroma, and tasting the espresso is like concentrated fruit juice, with a jam-like quality accompanied by a stimulating sensation.

Front Street Coffee separately used Huakui to make a hot Americano and a hot latte. The hot Americano gives off an alluring sweet berry aroma, and when tasted it is like raspberry juice, without any bitterness, while the aftertaste is the lingering sweetness of passion fruit honey.

The performance when made into a hot latte was somewhat mediocre; the coffee was basically covered by the milk flavor, highlighting a sweet milky taste (like infant formula).

Next it was the turn of washed Front Street Coffee Yirgacheffe Godin Godin. With the extraction experience from Huakui, this time Front Street Coffee adjusted the parameters once to 20g dose, 6 seconds of pre-infusion, extracting 32g of coffee liquid at 5 bar pressure throughout, with a final time of 26 seconds. Similarly, Front Street Coffee made a hot Americano and a hot latte for comparison.

The crema extracted from washed Godin Godin dissipated very quickly. Before pouring in hot water, only a thin layer of crema remained. The hot Americano also performed well, with rich citrus notes and a smooth, full-bodied mouthfeel, while the aftertaste was white floral fragrance. The only shortcoming was that the aftertaste was somewhat short.

The performance when made into a latte was not so ideal. The whole cup tasted very light, and it did not bring out the sweetness of the milk as Huakui did. It felt as if the coffee and milk repelled each other.

Finally, test Dorothy. Because Dorothy shows the flavor of "white peach oolong" in pour-over, Front Street Coffee also calls Dorothy "White Peach Oolong." Similarly, Front Street Coffee also adjusted the parameters for this coffee: 20g coffee dose, 10 seconds of pre-infusion, extracting 35g of coffee liquid at 6 bar pressure throughout, with a final time of 29-30 seconds. The resulting espresso gives off a rich peach aroma.

Likewise, a hot Americano and a hot latte were made separately for comparison. Having learned from the setback with "Godin Godin," Front Street Coffee this time directly extracted the coffee over hot water. Front Street Coffee considers Dorothy hot Americano the best-tasting of these three beans, with a rich peach flavor, creamy body, and an oolong tea aftertaste. It is not inferior to pour-over coffee at all.

The performance when made into a hot latte gave a somewhat unexpected feeling. The whole cup was like drinking light cheese, surprising and interesting.

Judging from the performance of these three light-roasted coffee beans, they all perform well when made into Americano coffee, and all express the original flavors of the coffee beans very well. But in lattes made by blending with milk, the flavors of light-roasted coffee are generally on the lighter side and are easily overshadowed by the dominance of milk.

For friends who want to use light-roasted coffee beans to make espresso, this idea is feasible, but if you want to extract delicious coffee, it can only be achieved through a great deal of theoretical knowledge and practice.

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