What is Espresso Blend? Can Espresso Blends Be Brewed by Pour-Over? The Difference Between Blended Coffee and SOE

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What is Espresso?

Espresso is a strict preparation method—specific water pressure, water temperature, extraction time, etc.—only coffee prepared through these specific parameter methods can be called espresso.

Italian coffee refers to various coffee preparations that use espresso extracted from an espresso machine as the base. The steam pressure extraction machine was invented by Italians. The concentrated coffee made by steam pressure coffee machines is Italian espresso.

Using Italian espresso as the base, combined with milk, milk foam, chocolate, ice cream, and various other combinations, the resulting fancy or creative coffees are all called Italian coffee. The core keywords are espresso machine and Italian espresso. All coffees in this system are called Italian coffee.

Therefore, Italian coffee is a system—a system based on concentrated coffee quickly extracted by steam pressure coffee machines.

The Art of Coffee Blending

Blending is actually an art form; it's not about casually mixing coffee beans together.

The Reasons and Purposes of Blending

People need to blend coffees from different origins for several different purposes. The most ideal purpose is, of course, to create a coffee with a taste better than any of its individual components. However, generally, single-origin Arabica coffee is sufficient to make very good-tasting coffee—fragrant aroma, smooth texture, and sweet aftertaste. Therefore, "blending" (i.e., mixing coffees from different origins) is not necessary.

The main commercial purpose of blended coffee is to reduce costs—using less-than-excellent coffees to create coffee with quite good taste to increase sales profits. Another possible purpose is to create a unique flavor, a distinctive taste that belongs to a specific brand. This way, customers who like this taste can only buy from this particular manufacturer and cannot obtain it from other suppliers. Another advantage of this approach is that regardless of how the taste of coffees from certain origins changes in different years, the taste of this blended coffee will not change accordingly.

Is Blending Just Randomly Mixing Beans?

Before blending any coffee, one must first understand the flavor characteristics of various coffees and at least have a clear idea in mind of the desired coffee flavor that cannot be achieved by any single-origin coffee. If the blended coffee doesn't taste better than one or more of its component coffees, wouldn't that be too regrettable? It would be better not to blend at all. If you use quite good quality coffees for blending, the result will likely be this way.

Although some fixed-variety coffees can be consumed directly as single-origin coffee, most coffees have more or less flavor defects, such as lacking special flavors, insufficient depth, inadequate strength, or certain flavors being too intense. To compensate for these shortcomings, several coffee beans with different characteristics must be blended to create a harmonious and deep flavor. Some people believe that the joy of coffee lies in the two stages of roasting and blending, while drinking coffee is merely enjoying the fruits of their victory. Blending coffee is not casually mixing coffee beans together.

Sometimes the blend of two specialty coffees can actually suppress each other's unique flavors, so blending is not simply mixing several specialty coffees together. Blending is like a painter mixing captivating colors on a palette—blenders can also use coffee beans to create tempting flavors. Therefore, it's no exaggeration to say that blending is an art form. As artists, blenders not only need experience and inspiration but must also use certain scientific calculations. The creation of art is not accidental but the culmination of long-term accumulation. Generally, blended coffee doesn't need to use more than five types of coffee beans. Because if there are too many types of coffee beans, the situation can become very complex. This would likely confuse only very special experts who wouldn't be overwhelmed by so many different coffee beans.

SOE Blended Coffee? [Confused Face.jpg]

Some baristas might tell you: "This latte we're serving is made with SOE blended coffee beans!"

This statement is incorrect. SOE beans are single-origin coffee beans, while blended beans are made from two or more single-origin coffee beans blended together. Since they are blended beans, they cannot be called SOE beans—there's no such contradictory thing as "SOE blended beans"!

Baristas might say this to ride the trend, using "SOE" to enhance the value of their coffee, or they might have insufficient understanding of SOE. Perhaps they just want to tell you that their blended beans are all Arabica beans, no Robusta beans. But can't Robusta beans be single-origin beans? Can Italian espresso made with Robusta beans be called SOE? Obviously, it can!

What is Italian Blended Coffee?

Blended coffee beans are made from multiple coffee beans mixed together, blended from different proportions of coffee beans with similar or different taste profiles, which can give the original single-origin coffee unique characteristics, particularly in flavor. The blending of coffee beans is also an art form—repeated trials and finding inspiration are necessary to create a good bag of beans. Usually, these well-balanced blended coffee beans are used to make Italian coffee, extracting aromatic concentrated coffee liquid through high temperature and high pressure.

Can Italian Blended Coffee Only Be Used for Espresso?

Not necessarily! Taking FrontStreet Coffee's house-roasted [FrontStreet Coffee Specialty Italian Blend] as an example—using a KONO dripper, water temperature of 88°C, medium-coarse grind, 1:14 coffee-to-water ratio, and a brewing time of one minute and fifty seconds. The result is very balanced, with chocolate and hazelnut flavors, and a rich texture, which is quite surprising!

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473