Specialty coffee beans VS commercial beans, how should coffee shops choose common coffee beans?

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From the perspective of the coffee market, coffee beans are mainly divided into two categories, commercial beans and boutique coffee beans. In terms of price, boutique coffee beans are several times more expensive than commercial beans. From a cost perspective, of course, the profit margin of choosing commercial beans will be huge, but the taste of coffee obtained from commercial beans is much inferior to that of boutique coffee beans. They can be used to make latte, cappuccino and other Italian coffee.

Specialty coffee beans VS commercial beans, how should coffee shops choose?

Specialty coffee beans: you need to know several characteristics of specialty coffee beans

The concept of specialty coffee has only become popular in recent years, and the concept of specialty coffee beans is still quite vague. Simply put, specialty coffee beans are high-quality raw beans that are roasted with exquisite roasting techniques to restore the unique flavor of the coffee beans themselves, which is a flavor that only belongs to this type of coffee beans. Roasted coffee beans are consumed within the best drinking period.

Characteristics of specialty coffee beans:

1. Specialty coffee beans must be high-quality beans without any defects.

2. Specialty coffee beans must be of excellent varieties, and the coffee beans produced have unique aroma and flavor, and have their own personality. For example, Brazilian coffee has a chocolate flavor, and Yirgacheffe has a citrus flavor.

3. The growing environment of specialty coffee beans also has high requirements. Generally, they grow at an altitude of 1,500 meters or even 2,000 meters above sea level, with suitable precipitation, sunshine, temperature and soil conditions. For example, the volcanic ash soil in Antigua, Guatemala, provides conditions for the growth of specialty coffee.

4. The best way to harvest premium coffee beans is by manual harvesting.

5. Fine coffee beans are processed in a refined way. Careful washing and sun drying, as well as various exquisite raw bean processing, give the coffee a "layered", "fruity", "sweet" and "mellow" flavor.

6. Specialty coffee has a strict grading system. It goes through a strict grading process to ensure uniform quality. And the protection during storage and transportation is very important, such as the control of temperature and humidity, ventilation control, and avoiding the absorption of foreign flavors. If these are not done well, then the beans with the highest grade will no longer be special.

Commercial coffee beans Commercial coffee beans characteristics

Commercial beans generally refer to coffee beans that are not of very high quality, with lower quality and higher defect rate. In terms of price, boutique coffee beans are several times more expensive than commercial beans. From a cost perspective, of course, there is a lot of profit margin in choosing commercial beans. Commercial beans are generally those that are mass-produced and packaged on a large scale.

In terms of the flavor of individual beans, the taste of coffee made from commercial beans is much inferior to that of fine coffee beans. Generally, commercial beans are chosen for blending, and after blending, very good-tasting coffee can also be made.

The price of this type of commercial coffee beans is generally cheaper, and both the raw coffee beans and the roasting techniques can only be said to be produced according to a batch standard. The biggest difference between boutique coffee and commercial coffee beans is quality and price. A pound of boutique coffee beans may cost 90 yuan, while the lowest price of commercial beans may be 40-50 yuan per pound.

How to choose coffee beans in a coffee shop

In general, how to choose coffee beans depends on the positioning of the coffee shop itself. If your coffee shop pursues cost control, commercial beans are generally used to produce Italian coffee. If you make boutique coffee and provide authentic freshly ground coffee to everyone, then boutique coffee beans will be the best choice. The most commonly used varieties are Brazil, Colombia, Blue Mountain, Yirgacheffe, and Mandheling.

Commercial coffee bean blends

Coffee is a blend of coffee beans from multiple origins. The roaster will roast two to four types of coffee beans at the same time. The coffee beans come from different origins and growing countries, and each type of coffee is roasted in a different way.

In order to provide your favorite coffee flavor, they are all mixed according to different ratios (roasting and blending). Coffee is a natural product from plants, so it is a living, ever-changing thing. Every time you roast coffee, you have to taste its flavor and mix 2-3 different coffee beans to achieve a balanced and delicious flavor. This is indeed a technical job.

• Colombia, Nicaragua, Brazil - chocolate, nuts, caramel

• Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda - sweet, sour, nutty, lemony, sometimes tart

• India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea - vegetal, spicy, salty

The industry generally uses blended coffee with lower acidity, such as commercial-grade beans from Vietnam, Brazil, Yunnan, Mandheling, Guatemala, etc. Italian coffee beans are usually dark roasted or medium-dark roasted, with good oil content, suitable for making espresso, latte and other milky coffees.

An ideal cup of espresso should have a balance between all the elements, a distinct taste , and a sweet but not bitter feeling in the throat after drinking it.

To be more specific, it should have a moderate sour, bitter, and sweet taste, a rich flavor , a solid and mellow consistency, and a long-lasting, refreshing and sour aftertaste like citrus.

Extracting an espresso

▼

– Water temperature | 93-94℃

– Pressure | 9 ba

– Freshly ground coffee | 20 g (using a digital scale)

– Total weight of coffee | 40 g (using a digital scale)

Specialty coffee beans Ethiopia

Ethiopia is an agricultural country with a history and tradition that can be called the origin of coffee. Yirgacheffe is one of the production areas in the south of Sidamo. There are about 12 million people engaged in coffee production. It is the main exporter of Arabica coffee beans in Africa. The high-quality coffee here is of outstanding quality and worth finding. It has a soft taste, a wild wine aroma, and a slightly sour taste. It is unforgettable after drinking it.

If you are a student who really likes African beans, you should easily find that compared with Kenya, Ethiopian beans are generally of different sizes and have a significantly lower uniformity. Whether it is Yirgacheffe or Sidamo, whether it is washed or sun-dried, sometimes the roasting color and particle size of the same batch of coffee beans can be found to be significantly different. There are nearly 2,000 varieties of coffee in Ethiopia that have been recorded, including 1,927 native varieties and 128 imported varieties. So if you just look at the appearance, Ethiopia's coffee varieties are "Grand View Garden", with everything in it, long, short, thin, fat...

[ Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Aricha ] (lightly sun-roasted) – Light fermented wine aroma, sweet orange, spice, honey sweetness. The sun-roasted Aricha from the Aricha processing plant is rated as the highest grade G1 by ECX. It is excellent in terms of green bean appearance, consistency, freshness, dry aroma and flavor.

[ Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Coffee Woka ] (washed light roast) - lemon, kumquat, white grape juice, Woka Cooperative joined the famous Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Alliance to produce high-quality washed Ethiopian coffee that can reach the highest grade G1.

Colombian specialty coffee beans

Colombia is one of the world's largest producers of high-quality coffee, a shining pearl on the world's coffee map, and a land of coffee favored by God. Arabica coffee is planted on steep slopes at an altitude of 800 to 1,900 meters at the foot of the mountain, and is all hand-picked and washed.

Colombian coffee has a balanced flavor and a smoother taste, just like a gentleman among coffees. It is produced in a wide range of areas, with Medellin, Armenia and Manizales being the most famous, and they are collectively referred to as "MAM".

Colombia's fine bean producing areas are mainly in the south, with an altitude of more than 1,500 meters, including San Augustin, Huila, Popayan, Cauca, Nariño, and Tolima. The products from these places have delicate sour and berry aromas, caramel aromas, and are full of sweetness.

Cauca is a certified coffee producing area in Colombia, with an average altitude of 1758m-2100m. 80% of Cauca is mountainous. The soil in the producing area provides sufficient nutrients for coffee growth. The low temperature at night and the relatively higher altitude slow down the growth rhythm of coffee. The coffee in the Cauca producing area has high-quality acidity and renowned sweetness.

Specialty coffee beans Sumatra

The coffee cultivation of Sumatra Mandheling began in the 18th century, when the planting area was close to the Aceh Province in the north of Lake Tawar. Most of the coffee areas in Sumatra are located in the south of Lindong, Subu and Takengon. Because the differences between the planting areas of Sumatra coffee are not big, the production area is not used as a distinction standard. Instead, the picking and processing methods have a greater impact on the flavor of coffee. The main coffee producing areas in Indonesia are Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi, among which the "Mandheling" produced in Sumatra is the most famous.

Mandheling is also known as "Sumatra Coffee". The coffee from Lake Tawa in the north can be called Aceh Coffee or Lake Tawa Coffee, and the area around Lintong and Lake Toba can be called Mandheling.

It mainly comes from two producing areas:

• One is the Aceh production area, which includes five production areas: Lake Tawa, Mount Gaiyu, Gaiyu, Aceman, and Takenggong Mandheling;

• The other is the North Sumatra production area, which consists of four production areas: Lake Toba, Lindong, Mandaineng, and Batak.

Mandheling is one of the most suitable coffee beans for deep roasting in the world. One of the famous reasons is that its own characteristics will not disappear after deep roasting. The rich flavor and low acidity of Mandheling, plus the thick taste like traditional Chinese medicine, make it very popular in Asia. In fact, high-quality Mandheling is also very suitable for medium and light roasting, and can show good fruit flavor at this degree of roasting.

[Mandheling, Sumatra, Indonesia] (medium-deep roasting using traditional wet planing method) – roasted toast, nuts, pine, caramel, herbs, Mandheling coffee is produced in Lake Toba in North Sumatra and Lake Tawa in Aceh. This is the famous “Two Lakes and Two Man”, with a mountain fragrance, which is the unique smell of soil in the primeval forest.

[Golden Mandheling Coffee] has a rich and thick aroma, with bright high-quality acidity, high balance, sometimes with a nutty taste, high sweetness, rich and mellow taste, flavors: roasted toast, pine, caramel, cocoa, and a slight herbal flavor.

Specialty coffee beans Brazil

As the largest coffee producer, coffee of various grades and types accounts for one-third of the world's consumption and has a place in the global coffee trading market. Although the natural disasters faced by Brazil are several times higher than other regions, its cultivable area is sufficient to make up for it.

There are many types of coffee here, but the industrial policy is to produce large quantities and at low prices, so there are not many premium coffees, but they are a good choice for mixing with other coffees.

The most famous of these is Sandos coffee, which has a mellow and neutral taste. It can be brewed directly or mixed with other types of coffee beans into a blended coffee, which is also a good choice.

Other types of Brazilian coffee, such as Rio and Parana, do not require much care and can be produced in large quantities. Although the taste is relatively rough, it is still a good and cheap coffee. Since it is distributed all over the country, the quality varies, and it has its own standards (NO.2-NO.8 according to the amount of impurities, NO.13-NO.19 according to the size of the beans, and six grades according to the taste). Almost all Arabica varieties are of good quality and the price is also stable. The most famous ones are "Brazil Santos", Cielo, and Southern Minas, which are essential for blended and single-origin coffees and are familiar to the public.

Taste characteristics: mild, moderately sour and bitter, with a soft aroma.

Best roasting degree: medium roast, medium dark roast

Brazilian flavor characteristics: comfortable sweet and bitter taste, extremely smooth in the mouth; with a light grassy aroma, slightly bitter; sweet and smooth, with a pleasant aftertaste;

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