Recently, there have been regulars who often come to Front Street to buy Front Street espresso blend coffee beans, while newcomers to Front Street look quite puzzled, not understanding why the baristas at FrontStreet Coffee sell several kinds of beans mixed together. In fact, this is blended coffee beans, also known as mixed coffee. So in this article, Front Street will explain what blended coffee beans are!

What Is Blended Coffee

Coffee fans all know that single-origin coffee is coffee beans from just one origin, such as Front Street Ethiopia Yirgacheffe or Front Street Indonesia Mandheling. These are all single-origin coffee beans, and the brewed flavor also carries the local flavor characteristics of the origin. Blended coffee, on the other hand, mixes single-origin coffee beans from different origins together. But here Front Street wants to emphasize that blending is not done randomly; it requires strict blending ratios and flavor compatibility in order to create a good-tasting coffee.

Take Front Street Ethiopia Yirgacheffe and Front Street Indonesia Mandheling as an example. The flavors of these two coffees are completely opposite: one has a fresh lemon-citrus profile, while the other has an herbal, earthy aroma. If they were mixed 1:1, Front Street would not even dare to imagine how dark that flavor would be. Therefore, blending beans is also a matter of skill, not random pairing.

Moreover, Front Street believes that blending coffee beans is an art. First of all, a coffee blender must understand the different flavor characteristics of coffee from major producing regions, so as to blend an alluring aroma and make the coffee more delicious. This requires not only a great deal of coffee experience and inspiration, but also precise ratio calculations. Therefore, it is not at all an exaggeration to say that the process of blending coffee beans is an art.

Since it is a blend, it naturally refers to blending two or more raw beans. But a special example is that coffee beans of the same kind at different roast levels can also be blended together, and new crop and aged coffee or old crop of the same coffee beans can even be blended together. So the categories referred to in blending are no longer coffee varieties in the narrow sense, but have extended in a broad sense to coffee flavor. When blending, 2 to 6 kinds of coffee beans are generally used; too many kinds will make it impossible to express the unique flavor of the coffee.

Why Blend Coffee

Then surely some coffee fans will ask Front Street: the flavor of single-origin coffee is already good enough, so why stillblend coffee beans?

In fact, the origin of blended coffee comes from Italy. The espresso drinks commonly seen in cafes, whether latte, mocha, or cappuccino, all use blended beans. This is because blended coffee beans can make coffee that originally lacks a full body become richer. Therefore, where there is demand, there is a market. The initial appearance of Italian blended coffee was because at that time rich, sweet-bitterespressowas popular, while single-origin coffee has flavor bias, meaning advantages and disadvantages coexist. In addition, high-quality single-origin coffee beans are expensive, while blended coffee is more cost-effective and lower in price than single-origin coffee, yet can still have a unique flavor. Therefore, at that time many Italians chose blended coffee rather than single-origin coffee, and blended coffee thus developed and remains popular to this day.

The main purpose of blending coffee is to maintain stable flavor and balanced mouthfeel, because coffee fruit is always an agricultural product. Each year, climate and environmental issues can make the flavor of coffee fruit unstable. It may be sweeter this year and less sweet next year, but mixing several coffee beans together can solve this problem well, at least keeping the coffee flavor tasted each year consistent.

There is also another point: surely some coffee fans wonder why espresso cannot be made with single-origin coffee beans. This is because an espresso machine has a characteristic of amplifying the most prominent coffee flavor of the beans. For example, the main flavor of Ethiopia Yirgacheffe is citrus-lemon acidity, so the espresso machine will amplify its acidity, while the main flavor of Indonesia Mandheling is herbal, earthy, and somewhat bitter, so theespressomachine will amplify the bitter flavor. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee does not use single-variety coffee beans to makeespresso, otherwise the resulting coffee would be very unbalanced and affect the mouthfeel. This is also whyespressoneeds to be made with blended coffee beans.

How Blended Coffee Beans Are Blended

Blended coffee is divided into raw blending and roasted blending. Raw blending means mixing the coffee beans before roasting, while roasted blending means roasting first and then mixing. Front Street believes that the advantage of raw blending is that the same roast level can be used to make the coffee flavor more stable and uniform, and it can be roasted right in one go. The same roast level can also greatly reduce quality control difficulty and improve efficiency. But it is not perfect either. Raw blending has very large limitations, so for raw blending Front Street generally recommends using several beans with relatively similar density; otherwise the flavor will be inferior to the flavor of their original origins. For example, beans suitable for light roasting must be roasted together with beans also suitable for light roasting to achieve a doubly good effect. If a light-roast bean and a dark-roast bean are roasted together, would that not be mismatched and lead to a poor flavor?

As for the advantage of roasted blending, Front Street believes that each bean can be roasted 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 roast dates mean more attention must be paid to more resting periods. Just imagine using 4 to 5 kinds of coffee beans for roasted blending: this one product requires attention to 4 to 5 roast dates. Therefore, both roasted blending and raw blending have their own advantages and disadvantages, but the purpose is the same: to make the coffee flavor more delicious.

Of course, blended coffee also has two blending approaches. One is blending coffee beans from different origins, such as Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun Blend launched by FrontStreet Coffee, which uses Front Street Honduras Sherry mixed with Front Street Ethiopia Natural Red Cherry. Sherry provides most of the flavor, while Natural Red Cherry provides aroma and acidity.

The other blending approach is blending between different coffee varieties. For example, Front Street Butterfly is famous for blending about 70% Geisha variety, and there is also Front Street Costa Rica Mirazu Estate Geisha Blend, which mixes half Geisha variety and half SL28, ET47, and Maico. However, Front Street believes that calling coffee beans blended from different varieties a "blend" is only to highlight one of the varieties, and is not blending in the traditional sense. Interestingly, if we also call coffee beans mixed from different varieties a blend, then most of the coffee beans we commonly see would also be blends, such as common Kenyan coffee, which often mixes SL28 and SL34.

Four Blended Coffee Beans from FrontStreet Coffee

As Front Street said above, blended coffee beans are an art. They cannot be made by simply mixing at random; instead, a coffee blender must repeatedly try again and again to create a cup of coffee with excellent flavor. Therefore, Front Street's roaster also went through continuous repeated ratio testing and created the current choices offered in Front Street stores: Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun Blend, Front Street Specialty Blend, Front Street Commercial Blend, and Front Street Dark Cocoa Blend. The difference among these blends is that they provide balanced, high-quality blended flavors for different price points. Below, Front Street will introduce these four blended coffees in detail.

Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun Espresso Blend Coffee Beans

For this espresso blend coffee bean, Front Street uses Front Street Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry and Front Street Honduras Sherry. Front Street's design concept for this blend is that it can be used for both espresso and pour-over. When used to make espresso, the flavor it gives off has a distinct fermented wine aroma. On the palate, the acidity of citrus and berries immediately emerges, with whiskey aroma, and the finish is dark chocolate.

When brewing this Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun Blend coffee bean by pour-over, the flavor is not as rich as when making espresso. After brewing, there is a fermented wine aroma and a little citrus aroma. When hot, the entrance shows only a clear wine aroma and a dark chocolate finish. After the temperature drops, it slightly reveals the acidity of citrus and berries. Overall it is clean and fresh, without a vanilla cream mouthfeel.

Front Street Specialty Espresso Blend Coffee Beans

For this blend, Front Street uses coffee beans from Brazil and Colombia. It tastes of a light roasted grassy aroma, delicate fragrance with slight bitterness, smooth and sweet on the palate, and a finish that makes one feel comfortable. This is because coffee beans from Colombia's Huila region have a pleasant acidity, mellow aroma, moderate acidity, and rich sweetness that is veryintriguing, while coffee beans from Brazil's Cerrado region have a comfortable sweet-bitter taste and are extremely smooth on the palate. So the combination is simply wonderful and can meet the daily production needs of coffee shops.

Front Street CommercialEspresso Blend Coffee Beans

For this blend, Front Street uses coffee beans from Brazil and Colombia plus 10% Robusta coffee beans. The taste is classic. Front Street believes that this blend tastes of rich crema and mouthfeel, caramel sweetness, and also carries flavors of nuts, cocoa, and dark chocolate. Sweetness and acidity are balanced, with a slight sweet-bitter note, and a lasting finish. This Front Street Commercial Blend, like FrontStreet Coffee's Front Street Specialty Blend, uses a ratio of Colombian and Brazilian coffee beans. The difference is that Robusta is also added to provide rich crema, making the coffee mouthfeel richer and more suitable for daily shop needs.

Front Street Dark CocoaEspresso Blend Coffee Beans

For this Front Street Dark Cocoa Blend, Front Street uses coffee beans from Brazil and Yunnan. Front Street believes it tastes of soft fruit acidity, caramel sweetness, and flavors of nuts and dark chocolate. It is smooth and viscous, but the taste is relatively light. This is because Yunnan's natural conditions are very similar to Colombia's: high altitude, large temperature difference between day and night, a mellow-aroma flavor type, moderate acidity, rich and full-bodied taste, uniform beans, high oil content, and fruity aroma. Its quality and mouthfeel are similar to Colombian coffee, though the taste is still slightly lighter than Colombian. Coffee beans from Brazil's Cerrado region have a comfortable sweet-bitter taste and are extremely smooth on the palate. Therefore, these two coffee beans also blend into a good flavor, and this Front Street Dark Cocoa Blend coffee bean is very cost-effective, suitable for espresso beginners and small coffee shops, and also suitable for coffee shops and home users who prioritize cost and have average flavor requirements.

Using Blended Coffee for Pour-Over

Blended coffee is not only for espresso; it can also be used for pour-over. However, the brewed flavor will always differ somewhat from the flavor brewed by an espresso machine. But Front Street believes that a different flavor from pour-over is also quite special, so choosing pour-over or espresso machine is both fine; just make it according to your preference.

Then Front Street will next share the pour-over data with coffee fans who want to brew by pour-over themselves.

Front Street pour-over coffee parameters: Kono dripper, 15g coffee dose, 90℃ water temperature, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, grind size (80% passing through a No. 20 standard sieve, coarser than the grind size for espresso).

Brewing method: Front Street uses staged extraction, blooming with 30g water for 30 seconds, then pouring in a small stream in circles until 125g for the stage break. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring until 225g and stop pouring. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper. (Start timing from the beginning of blooming.) Extraction time is 2'00".

For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat FrontStreet Coffee. WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925
 

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