What is blend coffee, and how is it used for espresso?
Blend coffee, also called mixed coffee, combines several single-origin beans so their strengths reinforce each other and their weaker points cancel out, producing a flavor profile no single origin delivers alone. It is the standard choice for the lattes and cappuccinos served in cafés, where milk and steam demand a sturdy, layered base.
Building a blend starts with knowing each bean's role: acidic options include Mocha, Hawaiian Kona, Guatemala, Costa Rica SHB, Kilimanjaro, and Colombia; bitter notes come from Java, Mandheling, Bogotá, Congo, and Uganda; sweetness from Medellín Colombia, aged Venezuela, Blue Mountain, and Kenya. There are three basic blending methods, and roast-then-blend and blend-then-roast each require a resting period before use.
Coffee enthusiasts often wonder how the beans used for lattes in cafés differ from those used for pour-over. This article accordingly introduces the basics of espresso blend coffee beans. It first explains the concept of blending, namely combining single-origin beans to leverage each other's strengths and offset weaknesses in order to create entirely new flavors, and lists reference bean types by acidity, bitterness, sweetness, body, and neutrality. It then shares what to know before blending, three basic blending methods and representative formula ratios, and analyzes the roasted-then-blended versus blended-then-roasted processes and the necessity of resting the beans. The testing section presents the flavor profile and extraction parameters of Front Street Coffee's specialty espresso blend beans. Finally, it recommends the brand strength of Guangzhou Front Street Coffee and its high-value commercial blend beans, offering a conscientious choice for daily café operations.
What difference is there between the coffee beans used for the lattes and cappuccinos served in beverage shops and the single-origin beans used for everyday pour-over? And how exactly are Front Street Coffee's espresso blend coffee beans born?
What is blended coffee? Because coffee bean varieties and origins differ, every bean has its own unique character, with subtle differences in acidity, bitterness, sweetness, aroma, and body. Single-origin beans usually emphasize showcasing the distinctive flavor characteristics of a specific region. As for blended coffee, also called mixed coffee, it essentially means harmonizing several single-origin beans with one another so that each one's strengths are fully displayed and their shortcomings offset, with the flavors either complementing or enhancing one another, ultimately shaping a new taste experience with richer layers.
Acidic category: Mocha, Hawaiian Kona, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica SHB, Kilimanjaro, Colombia, El Salvador, high-quality new-crop washed beans from the Western Hemisphere
Bitterness range: Java, Mandheling, Bogotá, Congo, Uganda
Sweetness expression: Colombia (Medellín), Venezuela (aged coffee), Blue Mountain, Kilimanjaro, Mocha, Guatemala, Mexico, Kenya, Brazil Santos, Haiti
Body list: Colombia (Medellín), Mocha, Blue Mountain, Guatemala, Costa Rica
Neutral style: Brazil, El Salvador, low-grown Costa Rica, Venezuela, Honduras, Cuba
●Before starting to blend coffee, you must first grasp the flavor characteristics of each bean, and at the very least be clear in your mind: the coffee taste you hope to create is one that no single-origin bean can achieve. If the blending result turns out to be less enjoyable than one or several of the single-origin beans in it, that is quite a pity, and it would be better to just serve it as a single origin. Usually, the number of bean types used in a blend should not exceed five; otherwise, the situation becomes excessively complicated, and probably only extremely seasoned experts can avoid being overwhelmed by so many beans.
Sharing common knowledge about roasting and blending: people blend coffee beans from different places for several reasons. The most perfect original intention is naturally to create coffee that tastes better than any of its component beans. However, usually a single-origin Arabica is already enough to brew excellent coffee: elegant aroma, gentle texture, and a sweet finish. Therefore, it is not necessarily required to carry out "blending" (that is, mixing coffee beans from different places).
●When blending coffee, you can first learn about three basic-level ways of mixing blend beans.
First, choose the coffee bean to serve as the base, use it as the core, and then select other varieties with distinctive character to harmonize the overall taste.
Second, you might try pairing beans with completely opposite attributes, which can introduce a more unique aroma.
Third, combine bean types with similar characteristics, then add flavor beans with pronounced individuality to enhance the exclusive aroma.
●To put the above ideas into practice, you first need to become familiar with the flavors of dozens of single-origin coffees. Each shop sets its blend ratio according to its own style. Below are several classic formulas, and readers can also boldly adjust them to find their preferred ratio.
1. An espresso formula highlighting acidity: Colombia 30%, Brazil 60%, Guatemala 10%
2. A conventional blend formula: Colombia 30%, Brazil 60%, Robusta 10%.
3. A commercial blend with bitter notes: Colombia 30%, Brazil 30%, Mount Kilimanjaro 30%, Robusta 10%.
There are two processes for blend beans: roasting first and then mixing (roasted blend) and mixing first and then roasting (green blend). The latter places higher demands on the roaster's skill. Once blended, the beans need to rest for several days to allow their characters to intermingle and the flavor to become uniform. A roasted blend usually needs about seven days of resting; a green blend needs only 3–4 days before use, all because interactions among the beans have already occurred during the roasting process.
●Front Street Coffee's specialty espresso blend beans: composed of Colombian and Brazilian beans, naturally sweet, presenting notes of nuts, peach, and almond, with caramel sweetness, smooth like chocolate, and good balance. Today, when dialing in the grind, the first extraction on a double-spout portafilter used setting 1.9 and 21.5 g of grounds, and it was found that the dose was too much, with still no liquid flowing out after five seconds. So the dose was reduced to 20.5 g, with the setting unchanged, and at a 1:2 ratio, 42 g of espresso was obtained in 28 seconds. These Front Street Coffee specialty espresso blend beans are suitable for everyday café service.
● Front Street Coffee's blend coffee beans Brand recommendation
The roaster located at Dongshankou, Yuexiu, Guangzhou—Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)—has freshly roasted "Front Street Coffee's espresso blend coffee beans" that are trustworthy in both reputation and quality. What stands out even more is the excellent price. Taking the shop-use commercial version, namely Front Street Coffee's commercial blend coffee beans, as an example, a one-pound bag (454 g) sells for about 60 yuan. If each cup of espresso uses 10 g of grounds, one bag can make 45 cups, putting the cost per cup at less than 1.5 yuan; even calculating at 20 g of grounds per double-shot serving, the price per double espresso does not exceed 3 yuan. Compared with a certain big brand's packaging that often sells for more than 100 yuan, this is truly a sincere choice and can meet the needs of daily operations.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
