Coffee from different regions, processing methods, varieties, and roast levels presents different flavor profiles, so it can suit many people's preferences, whether they love acidity or not. Many people think acidic coffee tastes too sharp, so they start looking for high-quality coffee beans that aren't sour. As consumers, then, from what aspects can we understand whether a coffee is acidic or not?
The roast level of the coffee beans
The reason the coffees we drink have such varied flavors is actually related to the roast level — coffee behaves differently at different roast levels.
Light roasts come out of the roaster earliest, so they stay closest to the bean's original flavor, mostly carrying fruity acidity, with flavors that usually lean toward pronounced citrus or stone fruit notes, such as the strawberry and guava notes of Front StreetFloral Queen, the citrus and floral notes of Front StreetYirgacheffe, and the juice-forward Front Street Kenya Little Tomato.
Medium-roasted beans are heated longer, so they undergo more caramelization and Maillard reactions; the beans retain some fruity character, carrying slight acidity while gradually releasing pleasant nutty and caramel aromas.
Medium-dark roasted beans are heated even longer than medium roasts, so most of the acidic compounds have entered caramelization and then evolved into components that provide sweetness and body, bringing the acidity and bitterness into a balanced, harmonious state.
In other words, if you want to find coffee beans that aren't sour, first avoid light roasts, then favor medium roasts with high sweetness, and next choose medium-dark roasts with more pronounced body. With these requirements in mind, here are the beans we recommend buying:
1. Front Street PNG. Bird of Paradise
Papua New Guinea mainly grows Typica. Typica has an elegant flavor, but the plant is weak, has low disease resistance, and is prone to coffee leaf rust. Front Street Coffee believes the biggest characteristic of the Typica coffee tree is its bronze-colored top leaves, which some also call "red-top coffee." Typica beans are larger, shaped like a pointed cone or slender tip, unlike the round beans of the Bourbon variety. Front Street believes Typica coffee has its own uniquely serene, clean flavor and balanced character, with a high level of cleanliness in the cup.
2. Front Street Brazil Queen Estate
The variety of Front Street Queen Estate coffee beans is the locally rare Yellow Bourbon. Because Yellow Bourbon grown at high altitude has greater density and higher glucose content, Front Street's roasting approach is to highlight the classic rich aroma of Brazilian coffee while showcasing Bourbon's own sweetness, so a medium-dark roast is used. The low-acid, high-sweetness character of Front Street Yellow Bourbon means it can be brewed not only as pour-over, but also in a moka pot or as an espresso SOE, carrying pronounced roasted nut and cocoa aromas.
3. Front Street Golden Mandheling
Front Street's Indonesian Mandheling is a fairly typical dark-roasted coffee; its basic flavors are spice and herbal notes with a rich, smooth body, so a dark roast better highlights the beans' fundamental flavors — a light roast would weaken its original character and lose the very soul of Indonesian Mandheling. Front Street Golden Mandheling, meanwhile, builds on Mandheling with three rounds of machine sorting and hand picking to remove all defective beans, greatly improving the quality of the Mandheling coffee so the cup tastes cleaner with a more pronounced sweet aftertaste.
4. Front Street 2013 Yunnan Typica
Front Street 2013 comes from Front Street's estate in Lincang, Yunnan, selected from the elegant-flavored Typica variety and processed with the natural sun-dried method to give the coffee greater sweetness. When November arrives each year, the coffee cherries grown by Front Street ripen one after another; Front Street arranges for workers to pick the red cherries one by one and spread them out under the sun to dry naturally, turning them at intervals so they dehydrate evenly. Front Street believes Yunnan small-bean coffee has a neutral, balanced character — that is, it has acidity, sweetness, and bitterness all at once — so a medium roast is always used, highlighting chocolate and nutty roasted aromas while retaining a slight fruity sweetness.
5. Front Street Strawberry Candy Geisha Blend
When it comes to coffees with pronounced sweetness, Front Street immediately thinks of Costa Rica, which produces excellent honey-processed coffees; leaving the mucilage on the beans during drying lets the coffee show a delightful fermented sweetness in aroma and flavor. To create a coffee that isn't sour and carries a sweet, floral-fruity profile, we combined Panama Geisha with Costa Rica to form a new Geisha blend, which brews with pronounced aromas of rose, grape, and dried blueberry.
6. Front Street Colombia Huila
Front Street Colombia Huila coffee uses the washed processing method common in the Americas, giving the beans a clean flavor profile. To present the classic Colombian flavor, Front Street uses a medium-dark roast, and after grinding and extraction it carries rich notes of cream chocolate, caramel, cookie, and cocoa.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
