In the world of specialty coffee, more and more people prefer drinking single-origin beans, and that's understandable. Coffee roasters can use the roasting method best suited to a particular bean to bring out its optimal flavor. In addition, when selling single-origin coffee, they can also introduce customers to the growing environment of that coffee and the stories behind it.

However, the importance of blend beans still cannot be ignored. Coffee roasters can tailor a blend specifically for a customer, which is a kind of test of the roaster's skill.

As for the reasons for making blend beans, Front Street Coffee believes that selling coffee beans with a flavor that never changes year-round is the roaster's goal. After all, some customers want to be able to drink the flavor they love all year long, but unfortunately, coffee is a crop, and each season's harvest differs. So how to adjust the types and proportions in a blend is one way to create fresh, stable coffee.

Another, more important reason for making blend beans is that it can create a flavor that a single coffee bean cannot achieve. So making a blend is like an art, not merely a tool. Interestingly, you can find that coffees with different characteristics interact to form an entirely new flavor—it's not just 1+1=2.

When different coffees are combined, in some blends you can still detect the characteristics of each coffee, and a cupper may even be able to identify which beans are in it. But some combinations cause one component to be stronger, suppressing the characteristics of the other beans.

Another advantage of making blend beans is that a good blend can have a very long sales cycle, meaning it can satisfy most people's tastes; even after ten years, the blend is still popular. In addition, a good blend bean should taste great whether used for espresso or brewed by filter methods.

Does blend coffee use poor-quality coffee beans? Of course not!

Five steps to blending a delicious espresso coffee bean!

First, plan a process for making the blend. At this point you need to think about some basic questions, such as: For which kind of customer is your blend made? Home consumers, a café, or a multi-purpose blend? These questions determine what flavors the blend should have, as well as how dark it should be roasted. The roaster must know what flavor he wants to roast. All of this must be decided in advance.

Second, the various coffee beans used in the blend must each have their own characteristics, and when made into single-origin coffee on their own, they should also perform well. Some coffee roasters use inferior beans in their blends and try to mask their bad flavors through roasting. Personally, I think this is a case of twice the effort for half the result, and customers won't be satisfied either.

Third, decide the roast level for each type of bean so that the coffee beans express their respective characteristics, and use their different characteristics to combine into your blend. It is recommended to roast first and then blend the beans. You must try various roast levels for each coffee; this process is extremely crucial, so be sure to try many times! I often see many roasters neglect this step and decide each coffee's roast level too early. Please remember that the optimal roast level differs for every coffee bean, and in addition, each coffee often has more than one optimal roast level. In this way, countless coffees plus so many roast levels will turn the work of formulating a blend into an endless nightmare.

Many coffee roasters copy some well-known blends, but in order to achieve so-called full caramelization, they spare no effort to roast so dark that it loses its original flavor. The result presented is a whole bunch of black, burnt products. Through lighter roasting, you can obtain the coffee's original flavor, complexity, refreshing characteristics, and its own sweetness. I encourage you to try expressing your blend with a lighter roast. Here, if a lighter roast is adopted, you must pay attention to the roaster's roasting skills; a fully automatic roasting machine cannot roast medium-light roasted coffee well!

Fourth, you must personally select the types of green coffee beans you want and their respective roast levels. Please remember that you must keep detailed records of the green beans you use, the roasting methods, and the blend proportions. If you create a good blend, you can refer to the records to continue improving it.

There will be some differences in coffee beans from each season's harvest, so it is recommended that you re-evaluate your blend every season. The key to the craft of formulating a blend is to make sure every bean in the blend has been roasted to perfection. To create a perfect blend, you also need to rely on your tasting ability. Even if you think you have made the best blend, the final judgment lies in the hands of the customer.

The following are some common espresso coffee bean blend formulas:

Whether blended or single-origin, as long as it can express coffee that is recognized by people, it is a good coffee bean. But this also gives rise to a question: Front Street is not boasting that blending is great. If you blend just for the sake of blending, then it becomes meaningless. So from the blender's perspective, the blended coffee beans must make up for the shortcomings of single-origin coffee beans. In this regard, Front Street shares a few delicious blended coffee bean formulas.

Steps for making espresso

The coffee machine used by Front Street has a double filter basket capacity, requiring 20 grams of coffee grounds each time, with an extraction ratio of 1:2, meaning 40 grams of coffee liquid is produced within a reasonable time. The extraction time is related to the flow rate of the coffee grounds. Generally, a single extraction is controlled between 20 and 35 seconds. If it is less than 20 seconds, the coffee taste tends to be thin and bland, while if it exceeds 35 seconds, it is easy to over-extract, causing the coffee to have a burnt, bitter taste. Therefore, when producing, Front Street controls the espresso time within the range of 26 to 32 seconds.

Coffee beans: Front Street Sunflower  · Warm Sun Espresso Blend

Coffee powder amount: 20g

Coffee liquid amount: 40g

Powder-to-liquid ratio: 1:2

Extraction time:  26～32 seconds  

Grind setting: Galileo 2.0

Before extraction, we need to first wipe the filter basket dry, turn on the grinder, grind a double dose of coffee powder, and place it on an electronic scale to measure and adjust until it reaches exactly 20 grams. Then use a distribution tool to level the coffee powder, and use a tamper to press vertically downward with force, tamping the coffee puck firmly to ensure more stable extraction.

Then turn on the extraction switch and let water run for 1 to 2 seconds to moisten the brew head, while also washing away the coffee grounds stuck on it. Place an electronic scale under the cup that will catch the espresso, and tare the weight to 0. During extraction, place it together under the brew head.

Gently lock the portafilter onto the brew head, and begin by flipping down the extraction switch. Observe the changes in the extracted liquid. When the electronic scale shows that 40 grams of coffee liquid has been extracted, at about 30 seconds, pull down the extraction switch. The brewing parameters will produce subtle changes according to daily air humidity and the condition of the coffee beans, so it is necessary to adjust the amount of coffee powder, the grind setting, and the extraction amount of coffee liquid up or down.

The extracted espresso can be drunk directly. Paired with a glass of ice water for rinsing the mouth, you can taste the dense crema and the mellow mouthfeel of the coffee liquid underneath. The espresso extracted using Warm Sun has rich aromas of vanilla, cream, cookies, and whisky, and after swallowing, a toffee-like aroma remains in the mouth.

If you cannot accept the strong bitterness, you can also add water according to your preference to make a refreshing Americano, or add a certain proportion of milk to soften the taste, making it a delicious latte.

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