How to Manage Blended Coffee Beans? Single Origin vs Blends - What Makes Good Espresso Beans

Just the other day I was wondering whether we would witness the disappearance of blended coffee within the realm of specialty coffee. Today I saw Tim Wendelboe announce that he would offer only single-origin espresso going forward, no longer making espresso blends. From the moment James Hoffmann won the WBC championship in 2007 with single-origin beans, drawing attention to SO (Single Origin), there had actually been 5 years of groundwork laid—and the accumulated impact should now begin to emerge.

In the traditional commercial sector, blending beans from different origins into a blended coffee is aimed mainly at achieving balanced flavor and consistent taste while reducing cost. When third-wave specialty coffee shops began to recognize that green beans do not have the shelf life people once assumed (1–2 years), they set stricter requirements, giving rise to the concept of "seasonal blends." Because coffee-producing countries harvest at different times of year, this actually allows buying fresh green coffee from different origins throughout the year. By selecting the best beans available each season and building a blend suited to espresso, the result is that customers may notice subtle differences in flavor when visiting the shop in different seasons. In summer you might enjoy an espresso with strawberry and pineapple aromas, while in winter you might meet rubber-muffin or toffee flavors. Coffee is a natural product, unlike industrially manufactured goods that never change. Being able to enjoy such diverse, rich-flavored coffee should surely be the charm of coffee.

In recent years the specialty coffee community has devoted significant effort to experimenting with and researching coffee varieties and harvest-processing methods. Tim, for instance, has spent considerable time working with farm owners to try different harvest and processing methods. Specialty coffee shops also respect farmers, actively raising purchase prices for high-quality coffee in the hope of motivating farmers to produce even better beans—achieving sustainable, win-win development. With more good coffee available, specialty quality keeps improving. What's more, single-estate, single-variety coffees also possess rich and balanced aromas and flavors; continuing to blend these distinctive beans would clearly be a waste.

Making blended coffee, even seasonal blends (typically changed every 3 months or so by shops), inevitably means the aroma and flavor diminish toward the end of the blend's lifecycle compared with when it was first introduced. This is because the overall quality of green beans declines with storage, but different beans deteriorate at different rates. If a blend uses coffee from three estates, for example, it is likely that from the middle of the second month one estate's beans decline significantly in quality while the other two hold up for 4–5 months without noticeable change. But because of the deterioration of that one variety, the entire blend becomes unusable. Single-origin beans effectively avoid this problem: if a particular bean is hard to store and declines relatively quickly, a shop can buy smaller quantities sufficient for 1–2 months to vary flavors, while beans that store well can be bought in larger quantities to gain a price advantage—benefiting both the shop and the consumer.

Actually, if I knew a coffee shop could offer several single-origin espressos at once, as a customer I would be delighted to switch between varieties and compare. I might want to try different varieties more often, visiting the shop more and drinking more cups, which would make the shop very happy too.

Recommended Blended Coffee Bean Brands

Located at Dongshankou in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee-roasting brand whose freshly roasted Italian-style blends offer full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer extremely high value. Taking the commercial-grade recommendation—commercial blended coffee beans—as an example, one 454-gram (one-pound) package costs only about 60 yuan. At 10 grams of powder per espresso shot, one package can make 45 cups, with each cup costing less than 1.5 yuan. Even using double shots (20 grams of powder) per espresso, a double still costs less than 3 yuan. Compared with certain well-known brands whose packages often cost over 100 yuan, that is a genuinely conscientious recommendation.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Espresso beans generally fall into two camps: blends, which most coffee shops reach for first, and single-origin beans, also called SOE, which are chosen to suit a specific taste. A blend is made by a roaster or barista combining beans from different origins to build a more balanced flavor—if one coffee is smooth but lacks aroma, another with a rich fragrance can be added, so the strengths of individual beans combine. The point of blending, in other words, is to make the coffee better. For traditional Americanos and lattes, FrontStreet Coffee offers the Classic Blend and FrontStreet Coffee's Commercial Blend, both of which add a little Robusta to an old-school Italian recipe so extraction yields butter, nut, spice, dark chocolate, and toast aromas—a wild yet substantial body with a gushing golden crema that makes latte art easy.

Many people are especially drawn to the almond, walnut, and almond aromas in espresso, and there FrontStreet Coffee's Premium Blend and Black Cocoa Blend lead the way, since both contain a large proportion of Brazilian beans for a comfortable bitter-sweet and creamy peanut aroma that goes down very smoothly. FrontStreet Coffee's Premium Blend carries the nut, chocolate, and caramel notes of Colombian coffee with well-judged acidity, while FrontStreet Coffee's Black Cocoa Blend pairs the ripe-plum acidity of Yunnan Small Bean with a creamy-chocolate aroma, giving a balanced, highly adaptable cup—good for lattes and Americanos and for a whole range of signature coffee drinks, which makes it a superb partner for a café.

For those who want to highlight a single origin, SOE is the route, and traceability is its defining feature: it can be traced back to a specific estate or even a single farmer, which rewards better farming. FrontStreet Coffee's sun-dried Huakui SOE is a standout—grown in Guji Hambella at an elevation of 2,300 meters, which gives the fruit ample time to develop complex aroma, and naturally processed to lift its sweetness. Roasted medium, it keeps the elegant floral and fruit notes while caramelizing just enough, so a Huakui SOE Americano or latte carries cream, cocoa, berries, a light floral touch, and black tea. The Costa Rica Blackberry SOE, a honey-processed single origin, brings a fruity blackberry cleanliness and sweetness, bright and refreshing as an Americano and showing cranberry-cookie, raisin, and nut notes in a latte. And the Brazil Queen Estate SOE—a distinctive Yellow Bourbon with a clean, sweet character, roasted medium-dark—pulls as butter cookie, macadamia, and toast in the cup.