As one of the most popular products in specialty coffee shops and chain coffee shops today, SOE is an espresso made from single-origin (single-origin) coffee beans.espresso. Its characteristic is that even at high concentration, the coffee liquid can still express the unique flavor of the coffee origin.

Flavor and taste differences between single-origin pour-over and single-origin espresso

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) this time used its own roasted medium-light roast "Front Street Yirgacheffe Gudingding Cooperative Washed Coffee Beans" for a comparative experiment. At medium-fine grinding, with a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio and 91°C drip extraction, the flavor showed bright citrus acidity, a light white floral fragrance, and a honey green tea-like sweet aftertaste, full and balanced overall.

However, at extremely fine grinding, using an espresso machine at 9-10 bar pressure to quickly pass 94°C hot water through an evenly distributed and tamped coffee bed, extracting an espresso liquid at a 1:2 coffee-to-liquid ratio,SOE coffeethe flavor showed obvious citric acidity, a berry juice mouthfeel, and an oolong tea-like sweet aftertaste, but overall it was slightly thin.

By comparing the two different extraction methods, it can be found that using the same single-origin coffee beans, beans that taste good and balanced when brewed as pour-over, after being extracted intoespresso, due to the increase in concentration, also gain increased acidity, and because the roast degree is relatively light, they lack body, ultimately resulting in a thin mouthfeel.

Advantages and disadvantages of SOE coffee

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) believes that the characteristic of SOE is highlighting the unique flavor of the place of origin, with richer coffee layers. After adding water to make Americano or adding different proportions of milk to make various milk coffee products, it can also highlight the distinctive flavor of a producing region.

But the disadvantage is the lack of stability. As an agricultural product, coffee beans' flavor each year is affected by various natural factors. Even beans from the same region will have differences in flavor, so it is impossible to makeespressohave a stable flavor performance over a long period. At the same time, coffee beans roasted too light can also easily produce SOE coffee with sharp acidity and a thin performance.

Generally, the best-selling products in a coffee shop are espresso-based coffee products, and product stability is also the key to retaining customers. Therefore, many coffee shops use dark-roastedespresso blend coffee beansas the default for their espresso-based coffee products, and then additionally offer SOE options, while the price of SOE products needs to vary depending on the beans, and is not necessarily cheaper than pour-over coffee～

How to choose SOE coffee beans?

Since SOE coffee is intended to express origin flavor in the form of espresso, many coffee beans must have their roasting curve re-established if they are to express excellent flavor as espresso. For example, there are many single-origin SOE beans on the market specifically for extraction with coffee machines. At Front Street, if you want to find beans suitable for making SOE, baristas usually give two suggestions: first, buy single-origin beans roasted to medium or above; second, directly choose the SOE category.

Choose from single-origin pour-over beans

1.

Front Street Honduras Whiskey Barrel Aged Sherry Coffee Beans

The medium roast gives the coffee a roasted aroma while retaining berry acidity. The SOE made from it highlights vanilla cookies and whiskey aroma; when milk is added, it presents the smoothness of chocolate cream, with an aroma that fills the nose and a very soft overall mouthfeel. The Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun Blend used in Front Street stores is made from Front Street Honduras Sherry and Front Street Sun-Dried Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Coffee in a 7:3 ratio. The whiskey aroma, fruity sweetness and acidity, and the smoothness of chocolate milk are perfectly integrated in one cup of coffee.

2.

Front Street Costa Rica Mirazu Estate Strawberry Candy Coffee Beans

Anaerobic honey processing allows the coffee beans to retain the mucilage layer for sealed fermentation before drying, maximizing the sweetness of the coffee beans.This coffee has obvious notes of raisins, strawberry gummy candy, and light floral fragrance when pour-over brewed, while when made into espresso it shows the characteristics of rich berry jam and orange-flavored chocolate;

3.

Front Street Brazil Queen Estate Yellow Bourbon Coffee Beans

If none of the above are the flavor type you like, you might as well look at this Front Street Brazil Queen Estate coffee bean from Brazil, a major coffee country. The medium-dark roast gives the coffee a rich aroma of nuts, cream, and peanuts, with a sweet chocolate aftertaste. The extracted SOE has a beautiful rich crema, and it is also full of aroma when made into milk coffee.

For the same coffee beans, many merchants launch two different roasting curves for pour-over and SOE uses. Generally speaking, floral-fruity acidic single-origin pour-over beans are presented with a light-to-medium roast, while SOE beans are slightly darker than pour-over beans, but without completely changing their main flavor profile, so that the espresso has both fruity acidity and the sweetness brought by caramelization, so most are controlled at a medium roast.

Take Front Street as an example. The Front Street Yirgacheffe Konga Coffee Beans and Front Street Huakui Coffee Beans, also from Ethiopia, are both divided in the roast level column into "pour-over light-medium roast" and "SOE espresso roast." The former is suitable for pour-over, cold brew, French press, drip bags, and other normal-pressure extraction, while the latter is preferred for pressure-based extraction such as espresso machines and moka pots.

No matter what method is used to extract a coffee bean, Front Street believes that freshness is very important. If coffee beans with a roast date more than one month ago are used, part of the aroma may already have been lost, and an unpleasant woody taste may have developed. Front Street hopes that every customer who places an order can taste the coffee's aroma during the best flavor period, so it ensures that only beans freshly roasted within 5 days are shipped. If everyone wants the SOE coffee they make to have a better flavor, Front Street recommends choosing freshly roasted single-origin coffee beans.

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