Can Blend Coffee Beans Be Used for Pour-Over? Single-Origin Coffee Beans for Espresso SOE Extraction Time

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In the coffee industry, there are many types of coffee—not just varieties of coffee beans, but also varieties of coffee drinks. The coffee varieties mentioned here refer to the names of coffee drinks, such as cappuccino, latte, etc., which are all names of coffee drinks belonging to espresso-based coffees; of course, there are also single-origin coffees. These two are mainstream, and the coffee beans used are different. So some people might ask: Can espresso beans be used for pour-over? Or can single-origin beans be used for espresso? That's an excellent question, and FrontStreet Coffee is here to clear up the confusion for everyone today!

Understanding Coffee Basics

What is pour-over coffee? Pour-over coffee is coffee made through pour-over equipment. What are blended coffee beans and what are single-origin beans? Single-origin beans are beans from a single producing region, while blended coffee beans are made by combining multiple single-origin beans together, hence the name blended coffee beans.

When developing brewing recipes, we always base them on the characteristics of the beans. For example, for a bean with strong fruity notes, we need to maximize its fruity characteristics through brewing. At this time, we need to consider: grind size, water temperature, coffee-to-water ratio, moisture content, brewing time, and even the choice of equipment and the influence of technique.

So, if you're using blended coffee beans, it means you need to calculate the above conditions for multiple beans during the brewing process. At the very least, you must ensure consistency in roast level. Otherwise, while light-roasted beans are still preheating, dark-roasted beans might already be over-extracted—clearly not an ideal situation.

Alternatively, because the cell walls of dark-roasted beans are more brittle with larger honeycomb structures, generally finer grind sizes are not chosen during pour-over, while conversely, light-roasted beans generally don't use overly coarse grind sizes. Therefore, grinding must be done separately.

Sunflower Warm Sun Blend

Varieties: Catuai, Catimor, Pacas, Heirloom varieties

Flavor notes: Chocolate, cream, vanilla, fermented wine aroma, citrus

When people think of blended beans, they typically think of beans suitable for making espresso. Blends mainly involve combining two or more types of coffee beans either before or after roasting. The purpose of blending is to create pleasant and rich aromas, distinctive flavors, enhance balance and mellow fragrance, achieve a thick and substantial mouthfeel, and allow the beans to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses to achieve balance.

In this warm sun season, I wanted to create a blend suitable for both pour-over and espresso. In terms of mouthfeel, I wanted this blend to have an immediately pleasant aroma, a rich mouthfeel with a hint of soft fruit acidity, and a finish with medium to high sweetness.

Blending Philosophy

After some thought and selection, I wanted beans with prominent aromatics and substantial mouthfeel. Beans with special processing methods might also be good choices? Anaerobic? Barrel-fermented? Ethiopian region beans have thousands of varieties with exploitable flavor potential. Washed beans have bright fruit acidity and clean mouthfeel, while natural processed beans have richer tropical fruit flavors with complex and substantial mouthfeel. When I was at a loss, I thought of the previously used barrel-fermented beans and natural Yirgacheffe beans, both of which had been used for SOE (Single Origin Espresso) with excellent extraction performance—aromas with fruit acidity, balanced mouthfeel that wasn't monotonous, and sufficient sweetness.

After our discussion, we finally decided to blend this "Sunflower Warm Sun Blend" using a 6:4 ratio of barrel-fermented Sherry beans to natural Red Cherry beans.

Roasting Curve Analysis

For blended beans, we need body, sufficient sweetness, and overall balance. Considering the possibility of uneven roasting during the blending process, we adopted a gradual heat reduction method during roasting to allow the beans to develop more synchronously.

Heat the drum to 210°C, set the damper to 4, heat to 200, return temperature point at 1'30", 92°C; when the drum temperature reaches 140°C, open the damper to 6; at this point, the bean surface turns yellow, grassy aromas completely disappear, entering the dehydration stage. When the drum temperature reaches 180°C, adjust the heat to 10, and open the damper to maximum 10.

At 9'30", ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, and the obvious toast aroma transforms into coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this time, listen carefully for the sound of first crack. At 10'38", first crack begins. After first crack, develop for 3'40" and discharge at 197.5°C.

Brewing

After cupping, pour-over, and espresso extraction, this bean has soft fruit acidity upon entry, persistent aftertaste, sufficient sweetness, rich chocolate aroma, vanilla, cream, with obvious wine notes, clean and smooth mouthfeel, and medium body—very much in line with what I wanted for this warm sun blend.

The specific brewing methods are as follows:

Cupping

Flavor notes: Slurping reveals fermented wine aroma, vanilla, cream, citrus, chocolate

Pour-Over

Parameters & Technique

Pour-over dripper: KONO dripper

Water temperature: 87°C

Coffee amount: 15g, Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15, Grind size: Medium-fine grind (BG 6W: 45% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)

Brewing technique: Segmented extraction

Use 30g of water for bloom, bloom time about 36 seconds. Use small water flow to pour in a circular motion in the center with 95g of water, segmenting when reaching 125g of water. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 227g to finish. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper. (Timing starts from bloom) Extraction time is 2'00".

Flavor notes: When hot, it has soft fruit acidity with obvious sweetness, rich wine aroma. As temperature changes, chocolate and vanilla notes emerge, with obvious cream aroma in the aftertaste.

Espresso

Parameters

Grind size: Feima 600N grinder #1.8, 14g dose, extract 20g of coffee liquid, time 20s.

Flavor notes: Smooth mouthfeel, medium body, with obvious fruit acidity upon entry accompanied by light berry aroma, wine notes, rich chocolate flavor, and obvious aftertaste.

Important Notice :

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