Can Espresso Blend Coffee Beans Be Used for Pour-Over? Blend Pour-Over Coffee Bean Recipes, Roasting Parameters, Flavor Profile Characteristics

As autumn and winter approach and the weather gradually turns cooler, FrontStreet Coffee had long ago created the FrontStreet Sunflower Warm Sun Espresso Blend suitable for espresso. Following this line of thought, FrontStreet Coffee also wanted to create a blend suitable for autumn consumption that could be used for pour-over coffee. FrontStreet Coffee hoped this blended coffee would showcase a clean and clear flavor profile, with a gentle yet evolving acidity upon entry, and a medium to high sweetness in the aftertaste.

The general impression of blended coffee beans is that they are used for making espresso beans. So can espresso beans be used for pour-over? FrontStreet Coffee believes that any coffee beans can be used for pour-over, it's just a matter of suitability. However, espresso beans typically use 2 to 5 types of beans, either blended before roasting or separately roasted and then combined, allowing the strengths and weaknesses of each bean to complement each other, resulting in a coffee that is mellow and aromatic. This approach loses the characteristic of single-origin coffee beans, which aim to express the unique flavors of a specific growing region. Looking at FrontStreet Coffee's current espresso blends, if used for pour-over, their deeper roast levels would result in higher body, with some roasty notes and very distinct aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee selected several beans from its current collection that would be considered for the blend: FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Washed, FrontStreet Costa Rica SHB Caturra Washed, FrontStreet Natural Yirgacheffe Red Cherry, FrontStreet Yunnan Huaguoshan Typica Washed, and FrontStreet Geisha Village Natural Geisha. All of these beans scored around or above the specialty coffee line in cupping. FrontStreet currently has four espresso blends: FrontStreet Commercial Blend, FrontStreet Basic Blend, FrontStreet Specialty Blend, and FrontStreet Sunflower Warm Sun Blend. Do you know how FrontStreet Coffee's blend formulas are created? Let FrontStreet Coffee show you the thinking behind creating blended coffee using this pour-over blend formula!

Blending Philosophy

At the beginning of development, FrontStreet Coffee needed to determine what flavors the "autumn" concept should express: its mouthfeel shouldn't be too heavy, it must have the fruit flavors of autumn harvest, and it needs to be sweet! FrontStreet Coffee's consensus was to choose one main bean, supplemented by 1-2 supporting beans to balance the flavors; if too many beans are used, the main theme would be lost, the flavors would become too complex, and it would be difficult to achieve balance.

Determining the Main Theme Bean

The main bean for the formula needed to be versatile, high in sweetness, have good body, and be sufficiently stable in quality. To meet these requirements, we searched through our database—each coffee has at least 3 roast curves and cupping scores, and by comparing their evaluations, strengths, and weaknesses, we eventually chose our Yunnan Typica coffee bean from dozens of options.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that FrontStreet Huaguoshan is our local coffee, allowing us to have good control over quality at the source. It's a bean that balances both mouthfeel and flavor, with balanced taste and lingering sweet aftertaste, making it suitable as a blend base. However, Huaguoshan is slightly lacking in acidity and flavor uniqueness. In terms of flavor, the first choice would naturally be Ethiopian beans—Ethiopian coffee is also known as the "coffee gene pool," with over 2000 known coffee varieties native to Ethiopia, offering an incredibly diverse range of flavors! So with so many Ethiopian beans available, which one should we choose? This led to our next work... Zhu Mang, Hua Kui, Aricha, Kochere, Worka... various varieties with floral, berry, and citrus notes were dazzling.

Finalizing Supporting Beans

Generally speaking, single-origin Arabica coffee is sufficient to produce a very good-tasting coffee; with a delicate aroma, smooth mouthfeel, and sweet aftertaste. "Blending" means combining coffees from different origins, each with its unique taste, aroma, and mouthfeel. By mixing and matching according to your preferred flavors, you can create your own exclusive coffee.

First round of pour-over blend testing: The satisfactory result was a 7:3 ratio of FrontStreet Yunnan Huaguoshan to FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Kochere, with mild citrus acidity and chocolate notes in the finish, though slightly lacking in sweetness. After cupping comparisons and coffee character studies, we chose FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe Kochere—which shares a black tea finish with FrontStreet Yunnan Huaguoshan. Its lemon acidity and orange flavors add layers and brightness to the formula, enhancing the Yunnan component.

Raw Blending or Roasted Blending?

If we were to roast these two beans separately at their most suitable roast levels and then blend, it clearly wouldn't work. FrontStreet Yunnan Huaguoshan uses a medium-dark roast, while FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Kochere is lightly roasted. When making pour-over, this would result in over-extraction of the Yunnan and under-extraction of the Kochere. This would cause the entire coffee's flavor profile to collapse, so we decisively chose raw blending!

Roasting Philosophy and Adjustments

In terms of moisture content, the two washed beans are quite similar. In terms of bean structure, Typica is softer, but the larger-grained Yunnan is similar to the harder but smaller-grained Kochere in heat conduction, making it less likely to cause uneven roasting when these two beans are roasted together. Additionally, we use a gradual heat reduction roasting method, with a longer Maillard reaction time after dehydration and homogenization, allowing the two beans to develop more synchronously. In determining the roast level, we also adopted a "middle value" approach—this development time and drop temperature effectively remove the acidity and excessive grassy notes that appear when Yunnan coffee is too lightly roasted, while well preserving the floral and fruit aromas of Yirgacheffe.

300g bean charge, temperature at 170°C, drop beans with heat off. After 30 seconds, open to 140 heat, air vent at 3. When bean temperature reaches 140°C, reduce heat to 120, air vent to 4. At 4 minutes 30 seconds, dehydration turns yellow, reduce heat to 90 again at 168°C. First crack begins at approximately 8 minutes, air vent to 5, first crack develops for 1 minute 45 seconds, drop beans at 195°C.

In terms of proportions, we first chose a 6:4 ratio of FrontStreet Yunnan Huaguoshan to FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Kochere. Cupping results: good cleanliness, light sweetness, fresh apple aroma, plum acidity, and orange notes in the aftertaste. Overall impression was good mouthfeel, but the flavor was slightly thin. So after cupping discussions, we decided to add a flavor-enhancing bean—FrontStreet Geisha Village Red Label Natural Geisha—this time using a 6:3:1 ratio of FrontStreet Yunnan Huaguoshan to FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Kochere to FrontStreet Geisha Village Estate.

Reducing the proportion of Kochere made the overall acidity smoother than before, and 10% Geisha Village brought more fruity notes, also enhancing the floral aromas and tea notes in the finish. In terms of roasting, to preserve more floral and fruit aromas, the drop temperature would be slightly lower; the time from dehydration to first crack was slightly shortened to preserve more reactive substances and increase first crack development time to develop flavors.

Yangjia 600g roaster. 300g bean charge, temperature at 170°C, drop beans with heat off. After 30 seconds, open to 140 heat, air vent at 3. At 140°C, reduce heat to 120, air vent to 4, 4 minutes 30 seconds dehydration turns yellow, reduce heat to 90 again at 168°C. First crack begins at 7 minutes 46 seconds, air vent to 5, reduce heat to 50 at 188°C to extend development, roast for 2 minutes 5 seconds, drop beans at 193°C.

This roast increased first crack time to develop flavors, while making the development of the three beans more uniform, and a slightly lower drop temperature preserves the floral and fruit aromas of Geisha. The raw blend was set at a medium-light roast level, with Yunnan Typica accounting for the majority. Because this Yunnan already shows distinct brown sugar aroma, black tea, and slight creamy flavors at medium-light roast, with clean cup performance and high sweetness.

Since the moisture content and hardness of all three beans are relatively high, and although the varieties are different, fortunately the particle sizes are not very different, this doesn't add much difficulty to roasting despite being a raw blend. After several rounds of pour-over and cupping, the flavor of this raw blend met FrontStreet Coffee's expectations. However, it's worth noting that pour-over cannot follow espresso extraction standards. The acidity is gentle yet has some variation, with the acidity gradually connecting with sweetness in the middle section, and a persistent, lingering sweet aftertaste. There's a sense of fresh green plants, with aromas of black tea, cocoa, caramel, jackfruit, orange, and nuts. The flavor is transparent and clean, with medium body and a slightly effervescent mouthfeel.

At this point, FrontStreet Coffee had a preliminarily determined "Autumn Pour-over Blend," a coffee that combines the characteristics of Asian and African beans, basically meeting the requirements in terms of concept and flavor characteristics. The cupping and actual brewing results were also quite satisfactory.

So do you know why many espresso coffees need two or more types of coffee? In the earliest days, the quality of espresso wasn't very good, so the most important thing was to improve the quality of lower-priced coffee. High-quality Arabica coffee beans have clean coffee flavor, very good coffee aroma, and smooth aftertaste, but they are expensive. If high-quality coffee is mixed with lower-quality coffee, this can largely retain most of the quality of Arabica coffee at a relatively lower price.

Now, due to changes in the overall coffee environment, the quality of coffee beans has generally improved significantly. Espresso blends are usually designed to achieve balance and ensure quality conducive to espresso. Most espresso beans combine high-quality Brazilian coffee beans with African or Central American coffee beans, similar to FrontStreet Coffee's FrontStreet Specialty Coffee Blend. Later, FrontStreet Coffee also adds Robusta coffee to produce "Crema" and increase the body of the espresso—this is FrontStreet Commercial Espresso Blend. Moreover, the main reason for blending coffee is to maintain flavor consistency. As everyone knows, coffee is an agricultural product, and when grown under slightly different conditions, the taste of specific coffee varieties will vary. Blending coffee helps maintain consistent flavor as much as possible.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that not only espresso can be blended, but pour-over coffee can also be blended. The purpose of single-origin coffee is to taste the characteristics of a single terroir. FrontStreet Coffee believes that today's coffee market is all-inclusive, so many people have started exploring pour-over coffee to find balanced coffee flavors.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style). For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat, ID: kaixinguoguo0925.

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