What Do Italian Espresso Blends and SOEs Mean? Which Tastes Better for Americano: SOE or Blend Beans?

As a commonly used coffee bean for espresso, blend coffee beans have received high praise from many coffee enthusiasts for their rich coffee flavor. With the recent popularity of SOE (Single Origin Espresso) forming a contrast with blend coffee, what excellent qualities does blend coffee still possess today? FrontStreet Coffee will share its views on blend coffee in this article.

What is Blend Coffee?

Blend coffee, also known as mixed coffee, involves combining various single-origin coffee beans to fully leverage the strengths of each individual bean. Blend 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 rich in fragrance can be added to complement it. By taking the strengths of individual beans and compensating for their weaknesses—either complementing or enhancing flavors—a new, richer taste experience is created. Blend coffee is divided into two types: green blending and roasted blending. Green blending refers to mixing coffee beans from different origins before roasting, while roasted blending involves mixing already roasted coffee beans together.

Which Tastes Better: SOE or Blend Coffee?

Perhaps some customers wonder why coffee beans need to be blended—isn't single-origin coffee the best? Actually, that's not necessarily the case. In FrontStreet Coffee's view, every bean has its own strengths and weaknesses. If one bean extracted through an espresso machine produces insufficient crema, we can add beans rich in crema to complement it. If the extracted espresso from one bean is too acidic, bitter, or sweet, we can find complementary beans to blend with, achieving the desired coffee flavor—wouldn't that be perfect?

Whether it's pre-mixed green beans (green blending) or separately roasted beans then mixed (roasted blending), both methods must depend on the characteristics of the coffee in the formula, and both approaches are acceptable. Post-roasting blending allows different degrees of roasting for each bean, enabling each component to perform at its best.

We often like to compare the flavors of espresso blend coffee with SOE, but this isn't entirely fair. Quite simply, espresso blend coffee is always purpose-driven, and there are many purposes, which can be roughly divided into three types.

1. Cost Reduction

Some coffee shops mix lower-quality coffee beans with higher-quality ones to reduce costs while increasing profit margins.

2. Creating Long-term Stable Flavors

We must admit that coffee is an agricultural product. The same producing region can produce different flavors in different harvest seasons, or even in different batches within a year. This reveals the drawback of single-origin coffee—you can't confidently guarantee that next year you'll be able to drink the same single-origin coffee that you found delicious this year (except for coffee beans where processing methods dominate flavor, and other factors from origin to coffee shop can also cause flavor differences in the beans you purchase).

Therefore, one purpose of blending is to create a product that can be supplied long-term with consistently stable flavors. When a particular coffee bean in the new harvest season fails to meet quality requirements or undergoes changes, similar replacement beans can be found to maintain stability.

3. Creating Flavors Unachievable by Single Coffee Beans

Sometimes single-origin coffee beans are like individuals—each with strengths and weaknesses—while blending is like organizing a team, taking each person's strengths to compensate for others' weaknesses, achieving a complementary effect.

For example, blending a high-sweetness coffee bean with a high-acidity bean to achieve a sweet-and-sour balance, or adding some Brazilian beans to enhance overall body—these are all purposes of blending.

These purposes represent the flavor direction of blend coffee. For example, if the goal is cost reduction, better quality coffee beans cannot be used, so the flavor doesn't need deep exploration. FrontStreet Coffee believes that blends created to produce flavors unachievable by single beans, or those不惜成本 using high-quality, distinctive single-origin beans, can easily surpass SOE if the formula is appropriate. Therefore, the focus for blend coffee should still be on its blending purpose and price point. After all, we can't fairly compare the flavor of a blend costing 50 yuan per pound with an SOE costing 100 yuan per pound!

FrontStreet Coffee's current espresso blend coffee drinks use the Sunflower Warm Sun blend, which combines Honduras Sherry with Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Red Cherry coffee. Through continuous experimentation by FrontStreet Coffee's baristas, a nearly perfect blending ratio of 7:3 was achieved. The resulting espresso features distinct fruit acidity, along with berry flavor notes and wine aroma, with a comfortable sweet aftertaste. FrontStreet Coffee confidently believes its flavor can completely rival SOE.

Espresso can also be made as single-origin coffee. If using single-origin coffee beans, the resulting coffee can be simply called SOE coffee. Coffee made this way allows you to taste the most fundamental flavors of the origin.

In FrontStreet Coffee's view, the characteristic of espresso blend coffee can amplify the advantages of certain beans while masking their inherent shortcomings, making full use of each coffee bean—why not do this? Of course, more blended coffee doesn't necessarily mean better flavor. The more coffee beans you add, the harder it becomes to consider every detail, and the flavors can become more chaotic. Therefore, in FrontStreet Coffee's view, controlling the variety of blend beans to two to four types is about right.

How to Drink Espresso?

Few Chinese people choose to drink these espresso blend beans as straight espresso. They are typically used as a base, adding milk or water to make lattes or Americanos.

The extraction recipe for espresso uses the Sunflower Warm Sun blend coffee beans: 20g of coffee grounds extracted for 26 seconds to produce 40g of espresso liquid.

Hot Latte: FrontStreet Coffee uses a ratio of 40g espresso with 240g of steamed milk.

Hot Americano: FrontStreet Coffee uses a ratio of 40g espresso with 200g of hot water.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473