Coffee Blend Formula Tips Revealed How to Achieve the Perfect Balance in Coffee Blend Flavor

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The Science and Art of Coffee Blending

Whether you are a small retail shop, a local roaster, or a regional roasting company, your blend formulas create market differentiation and serve as an excellent tool for maintaining customer loyalty.

My blending experience began many years ago in the Netherlands. My hometown, like other Nordic countries, had customers accustomed to buying standard formulas, typically Brazil-based with some Central American beans, usually with added Indian beans and West African Robusta varieties. My father became the town's evangelist for single-origin coffee, starting to buy single-origin, single-estate beans from various countries, expressing the flavors characteristic of each region.

One day at my father's roasting shop, I decided to test some simple formulas. The results were fascinating—I discovered that blending coffees with full and thin body (like Sulawesi and Costa Rica) would produce a very smooth texture. I also discovered another interesting phenomenon: blending two coffees with good acidity doesn't necessarily produce a pleasant flavor. Not only did the acidity increase, but the conflict between the two acidity profiles created uncomfortable sourness.

While conducting these tests, I also recorded suitable combinations. I believed I could one day find the perfect blending method for three specific coffees: Panama, Indian Monsooned Malabar, and Tanzania AA. Each component was roasted to a degree that clearly expressed that bean's characteristics, and after blending, I brewed it using French press and filtered through paper. This formula was delicious; Panama's vibrant acidity, Indian Monsooned Malabar's nutty notes, and Tanzania's chocolate and berry flavors combined beautifully. When I tried to replicate this formula, I realized I hadn't retained roasted bean samples of each component and hadn't documented the roasting process in detail. Although it was a fascinating attempt, I couldn't successfully recreate the Panama formula.

To Blend or Not to Blend

In the specialty coffee roasting community, single-origin coffee is becoming increasingly popular. This is easily understood: single-origin coffee allows roasters and retailers to showcase the best flavors of particular regions when selling in their shops. "I'm even more of a single-origin coffee enthusiast—single-origin can tell the story of origin and unique growing environment," says Michael Johnson, owner of Johnson Brothers Coffee in Madison. "However, our blend coffees give us opportunities to open doors to some major clients, like local universities."

Therefore, blending remains a force to rely on: when creating products customers need, it provides roasters opportunities to test their techniques. "I think there are very few reasons to blend," says Geoff Watts, vice president of Chicago Coffee and Tea Knowledge. "The first reason is aiming for year-round consistency. Some people don't like change and want coffee to taste the same in January as it did last June in their shops." All coffee is seasonal and perishable, so creating a formula that maintains freshness and stability throughout the year despite ingredient changes.

"The second more compelling reason is that blending can produce flavors that single-origin coffee doesn't have," Watts says. "This is the art of blending." This fascinated me—different flavored coffees can produce unexpected results. It's not that 1+1 doesn't equal 2, but rather that 1 and 1 produce different results.

This is the benefit of proper blending, and the drawback of incorrect blending. Because in a cup of blended coffee, each component has ways of expressing its characteristics, a good cupper can clearly distinguish each component. In another case, one coffee in a blend might dominate others, with discordant characteristics making it impossible for the cupper to identify other coffees.

Another advantage of blending is long-term expression of retail shop demands. Coffee should taste the same not only every month but also every year. More than a decade ago, Greek roasters Batdorf and Bronson developed their "Dancing Goats" formula, and today it remains the company's best-selling product. "The best formulas can be used for both espresso and filter brewing," says Larry Challain, founder of Batdorf and Bronson, describing his blending philosophy. This formula consists of five separately roasted components producing a popular flavor profile: rich, full-bodied, with sweet and smooth chocolate and berry flavors. Each component in the formula is produced daily by our two roasting devices and cupped by roasters for quality control.

Setting Up Formulas

Over the years, I have helped many coffee companies worldwide develop blend formulas, generally completing them using the steps introduced in this article. Without proper strategy, developing a formula is a great challenge and might end up with random results, as only very few formulas succeed.

I recommend adopting a five-step development process that allows you to plan and execute product development, creating at least three successful formulas for your company.

First, plan the approach to creating formulas. At this stage, ask several basic questions: Who is this formula designed for? Home use, restaurants, or is this formula all-purpose? The basic task at this stage is to outline the flavor profile of the formula and connect it to appropriate roasting levels. The roaster or coffee manager should know what flavor attributes to seek. Is this formula refreshing with medium acidity, or does it have chocolate and nutty flavors with a mouthwatering aftertaste? These are clearly basic questions before setting up formulas.

Second is the important task of selecting components. My view is that these coffees should be selected based on their individual quality attributes; each component must be capable of being a competent single-origin coffee. Some companies have poor reasons for blending—to cover mediocre beans in their components. I believe this is the most foolish strategy, only gaining short-term benefits (higher profit margins) without long-term consideration, losing dissatisfied customers.

Third is determining the roasting level for each formula component. This is a decisive step and must extensively explore each component in the formula. I've noticed that many coffee companies neglect this step, causing coffee companies to set specific roasting methods for each component too quickly. Remember, different coffees have appropriate roasting levels, not just one overall roasting level. Therefore, the roasting process and seemingly countless roasting levels can create endless nightmares for blenders. For this reason, I have defined seven roasting levels, as shown in Table A. Since there's so much confusion about roasting levels, I will express each roasting level using Agtron color ranges to describe the roasting process.

Generally, I recommend exploring medium-light, medium, and "well-done" roasting levels. Too many roasting companies relentlessly copy certain famous coffee brands, so we've seen大量深焙、极深焙与法式烘焙，这些接受过多焦糖化与焙烤的概念而不是发展真正的风味。

In lighter roasting modes, you preserve coffee's true flavors, with complex and potential sweetness, refreshing characteristics. Try to establish a niche market for lighter roasts in your market! Lighter roasted coffee requires great attention, especially for light or medium-light roasts, to particularly strengthen your roaster's skills. Automatic roasting systems cannot produce excellent flavors in lighter roasting modes, so roasters must ensure appropriate roasting modes proceed normally.

Fourth, we must truly confirm the main components of the blend. Now you must select the green beans in the blend and their respective roasting levels, as described in Table B, which lists ten formulas with suggested recipes and roasting levels.

Remember, it's very important to write detailed notes about the green beans you select, how you roasted them, and what percentage you used. When you complete a formula you love, you'll want to recreate it perfectly to achieve perfection for each component. It's an established fact that coffee quality changes every season, and I also recommend you re-evaluate your formulas at least every three months.

Whether blend coffee is the main product of your roasting company or just an option you provide, remember the proverb we mentioned earlier: the result of a coffee formula is better than the sum of each component separately. Therefore, setting up excellent formulas means confirming each component is perfect before mixing. Creating reproducible formulas extremely requires your tasting skills, and even if you have created the perfect formula, your customers are still the final judges. Good luck on your journey of discovering formulas!

Base Beans

Brazil:

Select pulped natural processed beans with full body, no musty flavor, and slight fermented fruit notes in the aftertaste.

Sumatra:

Select beans from Gayo or Mandheling regions with clean earthy flavors, preferably double-picked.

Panama:

I recommend selecting Panama grown in Volcan Santa Clara with mild to bright acidity and delicate sweetness.

Guatemala:

Select SHB Guatemala with lively acidity and clean fruit flavors. (These characteristics bring moving acidity in light roasts and chocolate flavors in dark roasts)

Kenya:

Select premium beans with multi-layered acidity and bright berry flavors (these are considered bourbon variety characteristics)

Ethiopia:

I recommend Grade 3 natural processed Yirgacheffe or natural processed Sidamo with good cooked fruit flavors and rich fruit characteristics.

Nicaragua:

Prepare beans from Nueve Segovia or Jinotega regions with transcendent fruit flavors and smooth texture.

Colombia:

For blending, I prefer Colombia of Caturra or Typica varieties with bright acidity, full body, and clean aftertaste. It can also have some fruit characteristics, but if you choose beans from Huila region, be careful that fruit flavors might dominate the overall profile.

Decaffeinated:

I recommend Mountain Water Process decaffeinated beans or Swiss Water Process decaffeinated beans; I suggest trying Ethiopian decaffeinated beans.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roasting shop in Guangzhou with a small store but diverse bean varieties, where you can find various famous and unknown beans, also providing online shop services. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473