FrontStreet Coffee Shares 3 Espresso Blend Recipes Perfect for Caramel-Sweet Lattes and Black Coffee

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style)

Understanding Coffee Blends

Coffee blends, also known as mixed coffee, involve combining various single-origin coffee beans to fully leverage the unique characteristics of each bean. Blended beans are created by mixing coffee beans from different origins to achieve a more balanced flavor profile. For example, if one coffee bean is smooth but lacks aroma, another bean with rich aroma can be added to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses, creating a richer new taste experience. Sometimes beans are mixed before roasting, called "raw blending"; other times they are blended after roasting, called "roasted blending."

Whether mixing raw beans in advance or blending individually after roasting, the approach must depend on the characteristics of the coffee in the recipe. Both methods are acceptable. Post-roasting blending allows for different degrees of roasting for each bean, enabling each component to perform at its best.

Before blending beans, it's essential to understand the flavor profiles of different coffee varieties from around the world. Beans exhibit distinct characteristics based on their origin. Different coffee beans have unique personalities due to different varieties and origins, with subtle differences in acidity, bitterness, sweetness, aroma, and body. Single-origin coffee beans often emphasize the unique characteristics of a particular coffee type. Blended beans are commonly used for espresso-based drinks such as Espresso, Americano, Latte, or Cappuccino, creating more balanced, smoother, and more stable flavors that appeal to a broader audience.

Purposes of Coffee Blending

The main purposes of mixing different coffee beans include:

1. Stable Flavor Profile

Because coffee beans are an agricultural product, even the same variety of coffee bean will have different flavors each year. Mixing several types of coffee beans together effectively solves this problem, allowing the taste to remain basically consistent year after year.

2. Balanced Flavor

Espresso machines have a characteristic of amplifying the most prominent flavor characteristics of coffee beans, so we almost never use single-variety coffee to make Espresso. Otherwise, if the coffee bean is quite bitter, the resulting Espresso will be exceptionally bitter; if it tends toward acidity, it will be very acidic. Therefore, we need to balance various flavors through blending.

Coffee blending is never a simple addition, but rather through the blender's unique understanding of coffee flavors, different coffee beans complement each other's strengths and weaknesses, creating a perfectly flavored blended coffee.

3. Consistent Flavor:

Since coffee beans are an agricultural product, even coffee beans of the same variety and origin will have different flavors each year. Mixing several types of coffee beans together effectively solves this problem, allowing the flavor to remain basically consistent year after year.

The Rise of Single Origin Espresso (SOE)

SOE (Single Origin Espresso) has become popular recently. While not necessarily equivalent to specialty coffee, if we select single-origin coffee beans with easily identifiable flavors as SOE, we can create uniquely typical flavored espresso. For example, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe's typical citrus flavors, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya's fruit flavors, etc. Since espresso amplifies coffee flavors, specific characteristics become more prominent compared to pour-over. However, although SOE performs exceptionally well, because it comes from a single origin, its weaknesses are also relatively easy to amplify, so factors like roasting and grind size will affect the flavor, making it not necessarily better tasting than blended coffee.

How Do We Blend?

(1) FrontStreet Coffee's Premium Espresso Blend:

Colombia : Brazil, ratio 3:7

Colombia - Huila Region

Located in southwestern Colombia, Huila is one of the main coffee cultivation areas. Colombian coffee generally grows at altitudes of 1500-1800 meters, mostly Bourbon and Caturra varieties, processed using the washed method. The beans have high density, uniform size, and full shape (thick from bean core to surface). Because famous coffee cultivation areas are scattered throughout the Huila region, the names of various small areas have become brand names and are circulated. Although cultivation conditions in this region are also excellent, the cultivation infrastructure of coffee farms and surrounding conditions is not yet well-developed. Raw bean drying equipment or washed processing facilities are still incomplete, which is quite regrettable. Huila region coffee has strong flavor and heavy texture.

Especially the nutty, chocolate, and caramel aromas of Huila region coffee, combined with suitable acidity, can be called high-grade specialty coffee.

Flavor characteristics: Rich and solid taste with pleasant acidity, fragrant aroma, moderate acidity, and rich sweetness that is quite intriguing. Due to its low price and small bean size, it's suitable for blending coffee. The coffee has strong flavor and heavy texture. Its nutty, chocolate, and caramel aromas with suitable acidity make it high-grade specialty coffee, suitable for single origin or espresso blend base.

Brazil - Cerrado Region

Brazilian coffee generally grows at altitudes of 1000-1300 meters, so its density is relatively low. Mostly Bourbon variety, using natural processing. Moderate moisture content, softer bean texture, and thin thickness from bean surface to core, making it unsuitable for high-temperature roasting, as the inner wall temperature of the roasting drum will scorch the bean surface, creating bitter burnt flavors.

At the same time, to express the characteristics of nuts, milk chocolate, and good body, and serve as a blend base, we choose to use medium heat for bean entry, maintain heat through the dehydration stage, make fine adjustments as temperature rises after first crack begins, promote more complete caramelization reactions, and discharge the beans when approaching second crack.

Flavor characteristics: Comfortable bittersweet taste, extremely smooth entry; with light grassy aroma, fresh fragrance with slight bitterness; sweet, smooth, and pleasant, with a comforting aftertaste.

Blended flavor: Sweet and fragrant taste. Using medium-dark roasting, when making espresso, the taste will have soft, slight acidity, clear sweetness, nutty aftertaste, with an overall feeling that is not too stimulating, balanced, with medium crema. This FrontStreet Coffee espresso blend is suitable for daily production in coffee shops.

(2) FrontStreet Coffee's Commercial Espresso Blend:

Colombia : Brazil : Robusta; ratio 3:6:1, raw blend;

All roasted together using medium-dark roast

[Robusta] beans have strong disease and pest resistance and high yield. Usually less acidic than Arabica beans, often with a slight woody aroma. Caffeine content is 2.2%, higher than Arabica's 1.2%, and chlorogenic acid content is also higher, making it quite bitter. Usually used in commercial beans, costing less than Arabica beans.

In terms of individual bean flavor, commercial beans produce coffee taste that is much inferior to specialty coffee beans. Generally, commercial beans are chosen for blending. Through blending, they can also produce coffee with excellent taste, suitable for making lattes, cappuccinos, and other espresso drinks. When we use our commercial blend for Espresso, because of Robusta beans, the crema will be richer, with classic taste, caramel sweetness, nutty and cocoa-like, dark chocolate flavors, balanced sweet and sour, with slight bittersweet notes, and persistent aftertaste. This FrontStreet Coffee commercial espresso blend meets daily needs for coffee shops.

(3) FrontStreet Coffee's Basic Espresso Blend:

Yunnan AA : Brazil; ratio 3:7, roasted blend;

Our Yunnan AA is [Typica], the oldest native variety from Ethiopia, grown in southeastern Ethiopia and Sudan. All Arabica varieties are derived from Typica. The top leaves are bronze-colored, called red-topped coffee, with elegant flavor but weak constitution, poor disease resistance, susceptible to leaf rust, and low fruit yield. Typica has four slender branches, spreading at 50-70 degree angles. Opposite leaves are long elliptical, smooth leaf surface, long terminal branches with few branches, while flowers are white, blooming at the base where leaf stems connect to branches. Mature coffee cherries look like cherries, bright red in color.

It requires more shade when planted, with harvest only about every two years. Yunnan's excellent geographical and climate conditions provide good conditions for coffee growth, with growing areas including Lincang, Baoshan, Simao, Xishuangbanna, Dehong, and other regions. Yunnan's natural conditions are very similar to Colombia, with high altitude and large day-night temperature differences. The flavor is mellow and aromatic, with moderate acidity, rich and mellow taste, uniform beans, high oil content, and fruity aroma. Its quality and taste are similar to Colombian coffee.

Blended flavor: With soft fruit acidity, caramel sweetness, nutty and dark chocolate flavors, smooth and thick but somewhat light taste. This cost-effective FrontStreet Coffee basic espresso blend is suitable for coffee shops and home users who prioritize cost and have moderate flavor requirements.

When blending, there should be primary and secondary distinctions to create more wonderful flavors than single-origin coffee. Before formulating a blending plan, first envision suitable combination methods, then blend through appropriate roasting, determine the best plan through cupping and later adjustments. Hope this helps everyone~

Quick Guide: Espresso, Macchiato, Latte, Cappuccino, Flat White Differences

Specialty Coffee - Latte

In Italian, "Latte" means "milk," so if you order a latte in Italy, you'll only get a glass of milk, not coffee. In some domestic cafes, there are also flavored lattes, such as matcha latte, purple sweet potato latte. Remember, these don't contain coffee.

Latte Coffee (200ml): Single shot espresso 30ml + Milk

Cappuccino (180ml): Single shot espresso 30ml + Thicker milk foam

Specialty Coffee - Affogato

In Italian, "Affogato" means "drowned," pouring espresso over ice cream balls, drowning them. Not only is it visually appealing, but it's also a very delicious coffee, deeply loved by women in summer.

Specialty Coffee - Flat White

Whether it was invented in Australia or New Zealand is still debated today. Initially translated domestically as "Little White," "Flat White," "Australian White," it was translated as "Flat White" after being introduced to China by Starbucks. Compared to regular latte, its foam layer is thinner, the foam is finer and smoother, and the coffee flavor is stronger.

When drinking cappuccino, you'll feel a layer of foam over 1cm thick, with a relatively soft texture. While Flat White also has some foam, it's finer, with foam body under 5mm, and milk and espresso blend well together, with a silky smooth texture.

Flat White (200ml): Base is double espresso 60g, some places extract the espresso longer on this basis, using double Ristretto (Ristretto: 1:1 Espresso)

Toffee Iced Latte Recipe:

1. Fill a glass with ice to 5/10 full, then add 10g of toffee syrup.
2. Pour fresh milk + ice into the glass to 7/10 full, then stir well to dissolve the syrup in the fresh milk to increase the milk's specific gravity.
3. Slowly pour the espresso liquid along the back of a spoon into the glass. The pouring speed should not be too fast to avoid destroying the layered effect.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473