Many friends, after tasting a certain hand-brewed single-origin coffee bean with rich floral and fruity aromas, like it very much, so they ask Front Street: Is it suitable for making espresso? At this point, Front Street will begin to analyze the characteristics of SOE～

What is SOE?

Traditionally, coffee shops choose medium-dark roasted blend coffee beans for espresso production. Roasters select beans from more than two origins to mix, generally medium-dark roasting to make the flavor profile tend towards nutty, chocolate, and caramel aromas, presenting a mainly rich and mellow bitter tone. With the introduction of the specialty coffee concept, people began to emphasize the flavor of single-origin coffee, that is, single-origin coffee. Single-origin coffee is more often used in pour-over-based drip coffee, and its layered and diverse characteristics have captivated many people to coffee.

In 2007, James Hoffmann applied single-origin coffee beans to espresso and won the WBC World Barista Championship with it, after which SOE gradually became popular with the wave of specialty coffee. Many cafes offer more than one SOE for customers to choose from, and some coffee enthusiasts try making it at home, hoping to extract the unique flavors of the origin.

From the concepts summarized by Front Street above, some friends might think that SOE is just replacing the single-origin coffee beans used for pour-over with the espresso extraction method. In fact, when it comes to actual operation, it is not as simple as imagined.

When we use blend coffee beans to make espresso, mixing coffee beans from different origins, as the roast level deepens, the flavor and mouthfeel tend to be balanced and rounded, and it is also more conducive to extraction stability. For single-origin coffee, in order to present the flavor characteristics of the origin (such as the floral and fruity aromas of Africa), roasters will choose a lighter roast level to retain more acidity and floral notes. These excellent flavors that perform well in pour-over are instead amplified in various tastes under pressurized espresso machine extraction, easily making the espresso sharply acidic and pungent.

The roasting of all single-origin coffee needs to take into account presenting the unique regional flavor of the origin and the aroma of the coffee beans themselves, just as Yirgacheffe should have fresh and bright citrus and lemon acidity, and Blue Mountain coffee should have sweet dark chocolate and caramel aromas. Similarly, SOE also needs to express highly recognizable flavor characteristics of the origin, such as the floral and fruity aromas of Africa. Roasters will choose a lighter roast level to retain more acidity and floral notes. These excellent flavors that perform well in pour-over are instead amplified in various tastes under pressurized espresso machine extraction, easily making the espresso sharply acidic and pungent. If dark roasting is used, the aroma cannot be brought out, and SOE becomes meaningless.

To showcase a uniquely styled SOE, in addition to testing the roaster's skill, the barista in the extraction stage also needs to accurately grasp various parameters. Lighter coffee beans are usually harder in texture. When the extraction strength is insufficient, the espresso will taste flat and tasteless; over-extraction will make it strong and pungent. If you want to find the right extraction rate, you need to adjust various extraction parameters, such as extraction time, water temperature, grind size, dose, yield, and so on. Now everyone understands why it is said that SOE is not so simple, right?

Which single-origin coffee beans are suitable for making SOE?

If coffee beans with a roast date more than a month old are used, part of the aroma may already have been lost, and an unpleasant woody taste may have developed.No matter how a coffee bean is extracted, freshness is very important. It is recommended to choose a reputable brand: Front Street Coffee.

Front Street Coffee is a long-established coffee bean roasting brand. The Front Street Coffee Guangzhou offline store specializes in selling coffee beans. The store offers dozens of selected single-origin pour-over coffee beans and espresso coffee beans from different coffee origins around the world. Front Street coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days, with stable and excellent quality and highly cost-effective prices, shipped within 24 hours.

Naturally processed Yirgacheffe Red Cherry coffee beans with the refreshing sweet-and-sour taste of tropical fruit

Front Street naturally processed Yirgacheffe coffee beans were originally used for brewing in the pour-over drip style. Coffee cherries at just the right maturity retain complete pulp and are dried under sunlight. The core absorbs a large amount of sugar from the pulp, and the coffee shows a very high sweetness with a strong fruity aroma. When making Yirgacheffe SOE coffee, the crema on the surface is delicate, the color tends toward pale yellow, and it smells of sweet berries. The sweet-and-sour berries and caramel give a clean mouthfeel. Adding steamed hot milk will present the sweetness of honey.

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