What are the core principles behind blended coffee beans?

Blended coffee beans follow four basic principles: clarify the blending purpose, set the target flavor, decide between raw and roasted blending, and lock in a fixed ratio. Single-origin coffee comes from one origin, region, or estate and shows local terroir, while a blend combines beans, often from different origins and processing methods, to build a recognizable profile.

Recognizability matters because a blend without distinctive character has little to offer on a cafe menu. Front Street Coffee's Sunflower Warm Sun blend uses two specialty coffees from different origins and can also be brewed as pour-over. Single-origin lots are bought batch by batch so green coffee quality can be checked, which is harder to do once beans are blending coffee components.

What exactly is the difference between single-origin coffee and blended coffee? Starting from definitions, this article systematically sorts out the four major basic principles of blended coffee beans: clarifying the blending purpose, determining the target flavor, choosing raw blending or roasted blending, and locking in the blending ratio. Using details as examples, the article explains how to create a recognizable flavor through combinations of beans from different origins and different processing methods. At the same time, it also shares the brewing parameters for single-origin coffee and the extraction plan for espresso, making it suitable for enthusiasts who want to understand the logic of coffee blending in greater depth.

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Regarding the blending of coffee beans, Front Street has its own understanding. Front Street has a new-style blended bean called Sunflower Warm Sun Blend. This bean is composed of two specialty coffees from different origins, so it can also be used for pour-over. Blending a bean looks simple on the surface—just mix the beans together—but the final flavor and mouthfeel must be recognizable in order to become a distinctive in-house product. The blending principles, flavor direction, and selling-point positioning all need to be considered in advance; otherwise, launching a blended bean with no distinctive features is just playing by yourself. Front Street has always believed that a good blended bean should have its own characteristics, otherwise it has no competitiveness in the industry at all.

What are single-origin coffee beans? Single-origin coffee refers to coffee from a specific origin, specific region, or specific estate, possessing a unique special flavor that can showcase the local terroir characteristics. For example, Front Street Coffee’s Huakui coffee comes from the Buku processing plant in Guji, Sidamo, Ethiopia. In the purchasing process, single-origin coffee allows for batch-by-batch inspection of the quality of green coffee beans. In fact, the definition of single-origin coffee is rather vague, and there is no authoritative and clear international standard. There are four common criteria for determining single-origin coffee: single origin, single variety, single batch, and single processing method.

So some friends may ask: if different varieties harvested from the same region are mixed, do they count as single-origin coffee beans? Front Street can tell you with certainty that they do count as single-origin coffee beans. For example, Ethiopia’s coffee variety system is extremely complex, and locally, different varieties are mostly planted and harvested together, which is also why Ethiopian coffee beans often vary in size. Then what about the same region and the same variety, processed with different processing methods and then mixed—does that count as single-origin coffee? It also counts. A while ago, Front Street obtained a coffee bean from El Salvador’s Chocolate Lover Estate. This bean uses Bourbon coffee from the same estate, 50% washed and 50% black honey processed, in order to present the chocolate flavor of that region. Because it comes from the same estate, this bean belongs to single-origin coffee beans.

What are blended coffee beans?

Blended coffee, also called combined coffee, is the mixing of multiple single-origin coffee beans so that the strengths of each single-origin coffee bean can be fully brought into play. Combined blended beans are made by mixing coffee beans from different origins in pursuit of a more balanced taste. For example, if one coffee bean has a smooth mouthfeel but lacks aroma, then another bean rich in aroma is added, allowing the advantages of different coffee beans to complement each other, achieving complementarity or enhancement in taste, thereby creating a richer new mouthfeel. Sometimes green beans are mixed first and then roasted; this method is called raw blending. Sometimes the coffee beans are mixed after roasting is completed; this method is called roasted blending. In order to keep the flavor of the blended coffee stable, Front Street’s roasters use medium-dark roasting.

The four principles of blending espresso beans (1) Front Street Coffee’s purpose for blending coffee beans:

1. Reduce costs

Some cafes mix lower-quality coffee beans into higher-quality coffee beans to reduce costs while increasing sales profit.

2. Stable flavor

Coffee beans are an agricultural product. Even for the same kind of coffee bean, the flavor varies from year to year. Mixing several coffee beans together can solve this problem well and keep the taste basically consistent every year.

3. Create flavors that a single coffee bean cannot produce

Coffee beans from one origin are like a person, having both strengths and weaknesses, while blending is like forming a team, using each one’s strengths to make up for the other’s weaknesses, thereby achieving a mutually enhancing effect.

4. Balance the mouthfeel

Espresso machines have a characteristic: they amplify the most prominent flavor characteristics of coffee beans. We almost never use a single variety of coffee to make espresso; otherwise, if that coffee bean is bitter, the espresso made will be exceptionally bitter; if it is sour, it will be very sour. So we need to balance various tastes through blending.

(2) Determine the target flavor

Once we have determined the purpose, the next step is to determine the target flavor of the blended coffee beans. Only with a clear goal can we know where to start. At the same time, this step also greatly tests the blender’s understanding of the existing coffee beans and the flavors of coffee-producing regions. Just like the Warm Sun Blend coffee beans that Front Street Coffee uses to make espresso, when Front Street first blended this bean, it hoped the espresso flavor would not be so conventional and ordinary, and wanted an espresso with wine aroma, so it used Sherry coffee beans fermented in Honduran whiskey barrels to provide the wine aroma, and Ethiopian sun-dried Red Cherry to provide acidity and fermentation feel.

(3) Determine the blending type

It was mentioned above that blended coffee includes raw blending and roasted blending, so what are the advantages and disadvantages of each blending method? Front Street believes that the advantage of raw blending is that the same roast level can be used, making the coffee more stable and uniform; secondly, it can reduce the number of roasting sessions, completing it in one roast and improving efficiency; the same roast level can also greatly reduce the difficulty of quality control (in the same roast, only one resting date needs to be tracked, whereas raw blending can easily lead to inconsistent roasting dates among several blended bean components, resulting in flavor differences). At the same time, the disadvantages of raw blending are also very obvious. Raw blending has very great limitations, and generally raw blending is more recommended for several beans with relatively similar density. For example, if a coffee bean suitable for light roasting and a coffee bean suitable for dark roasting are mixed together and roasted to the same level, it is easy for 1+1<1的情况。

Front Street believes that the advantage of roasted blending is that each bean can be roasted separately according to its optimal roast level, maximizing each bean’s characteristics. But the disadvantage of roasted blending is that daily quality control and management become more difficult. Inconsistent roasting dates mean more resting periods need to be tracked. Just imagine using 4 to 5 coffee beans for roasted blending; this one product requires tracking 4 to 5 roasting dates. Front Street Coffee uses the roasted blending method when roasting the Warm Sun Blend, separately roasting the Honduran Sherry barrel coffee beans and the sun-dried Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Project, in order to maximize the wine aroma of the Sherry barrel coffee beans and also preserve as much as possible the fruity acidity and citrus berry aroma of the other sun-dried Yirgacheffe. (4) Determine the blending ratio

The first is the flavor and quality of the candidate coffee beans for blending. Before blending, first confirm whether the coffee quality is acceptable and whether there are differences in flavor. This step is very important for blending a specialty-grade coffee bean. The second is to pre-determine the ratio. After extraction, take the coffee liquid and mix it according to different ratios, designing several plans with different ratios, and confirm an optimal range value by slurping.

The final confirmation is to roast the range value from the pre-confirmation according to the blending type confirmed in part three (raw blending or roasted blending), and directly taste it using the extraction mode targeted by the product positioning. For the Front Street Coffee Warm Sun Blend coffee beans just mentioned, in order to make the espresso highlight the wine aroma, the whiskey barrel Sherry coffee beans account for 60% in the blend, and then the sun-dried Red Cherry is used to increase the coffee’s smoothness, fermentation feel, and acidity, so it accounts for 40%.

How does Front Street Coffee make pour-over single-origin coffee beans?

This time Front Street uses the sun-dried Red Cherry from Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia, for a brewing demonstration.

Origin: Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia

Altitude: 1700-2200m

Processing method: Sun-dried processing

Variety: Ethiopian heirloom varieties

In order to highlight this coffee bean’s berry acidity and the fermentation feel and sweetness brought by sun-drying, Front Street Coffee uses a V60 dripper to brew this coffee bean. Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Grind size: medium-fine grind (80% passing through a No. 20 sieve)

Water temperature: 90-91°C

Front Street Coffee uses staged extraction, also called three-stage brewing: use 30 grams of water for a 30-second bloom, pour in a small stream in circles until 125 grams for the stage break, and when the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring until 225 grams and stop pouring. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed again, remove the dripper. (Timing starts at the beginning of the bloom.) The extraction time is 1'55"-2'05".

Brewing flavor: Lemon, licorice, citrus, berries, sweet orange; the overall sweetness is relatively high, the aftertaste has caramel and cream flavors, and the finish carries black tea aroma. How does Front Street Coffee extract espresso?

This time Front Street uses the Warm Sun Blend coffee beans for an espresso extraction demonstration.

Coffee powder dose: 19 grams

Coffee liquid yield: 40 grams

Extraction time: 30 seconds

Grind size: Pegasus 900N #2

Flavor: smooth mouthfeel; on entry there is obvious fruity acidity accompanied by a light berry aroma, whiskey wine aroma, and rich chocolate flavor, with a clearly sweet aftertaste.

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