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The Art of Hand-Drip Blends

Even when I was new to the industry, whenever someone mentioned hand-drip blends, Japan was the first thing that came to mind. They are truly dedicated to creating blended coffee beans, though they typically roast the coffee very dark and then use a crane-spouted kettle for drip brewing, as if trying to tell their own story through a single cup of coffee.

Creating Synergy in Specialty Coffee Blends

Today, we're discussing hand-drip blends in specialty coffee. I believe that if we're going to create such blends, they must achieve a synergy where one plus one equals more than two.

Take Wang Shiru's hand-drip blend, for example: Kenya blended with Yirgacheffe and Honduras. The cup tasting reveals primary flavors of apricot and peach, with Kenya's bright acidity in the front segment transitioning to Honduras's relatively softer acidity in the middle and back segments. It has a medium-low weight, juice-like sweetness, but the slight drawback is some bitterness and miscellaneous flavors in the back segment, slightly affecting the texture, aftertaste, and balance (this might be because the beans have been stored for over ten days, causing the flavors to decline).

Overall, this is a very successful hand-drip blend attempt. Here, I'll大胆 guess her thinking: the base bean (similar to the concept of base liquor in mixology—it doesn't have too much personality and can be compatible with most coffee beans) should be Honduras. The Honduras I've tasted before is a typical American bean (balanced), existing in this blend with a sweet, slightly malic acid tone; the main flavor is Yirgacheffe. Ethiopian beans naturally have distinct personalities, so adding just a little is sufficient, because we want to achieve one plus one equals more than two, rather than tasting like Yirgacheffe; I think the most brilliant aspect of this hand-drip blend is the addition of Kenya. We all know that lemon is a magical ingredient—too sour to eat directly, but when paired with various ingredients, it either enhances existing flavors or creates new possibilities. Kenya is known for its lemon-like acidity, and in this blend, it plays the role of "lemon juice," making the acidity more active and thereby driving the entire cup of coffee.

Roaster's Perspective on Hand-Drip Blend Philosophy

Since my primary role is a roaster, I think it's necessary to discuss with you my approach to hand-drip blend coffee beans. And before roasting, you need to make an important decision.

Raw Blending vs. Roasted Blending

Raw blending means combining different raw beans in certain proportions before roasting them together; roasted blending means roasting different raw beans separately before combining them in certain proportions. Behind these two straightforward terms lies an important parameter: expansion rate. If you choose raw blending, you typically select raw beans with similar moisture content, density, and water activity; if you choose roasted blending, you usually need to roast the coffee to similar expansion rates. Because if you end up with beans in a hand-drip blend that have significantly different expansion rates, during brewing, when the coffee with higher expansion rate is approaching over-extraction, the coffee with lower expansion rate might still be under-extracted (the higher the expansion rate, the easier it is to extract soluble substances from the coffee cell walls).

Blending Philosophy

Blending is a roaster's self-expression, so every roaster will give different answers. Here, I'll share my views on hand-drip blends.

Since it's self-expression, I believe it must have personality—no mediocre flavors. A blend must include a bean with personality: Ethiopian, Geisha, or heavily processed Central American coffee (I tend to prefer Ethiopian); using Central American beans as the base would be a good choice to increase overall body (actually, I might prefer using African beans with high body like Uganda as the base); since we don't roast too dark to highlight flavors, I think choosing at most three beans for blending is best, otherwise flavors are difficult to harmonize well; in terms of roasting, I'd choose raw blending (honestly, most roasters don't choose roasted blending—storage management is too troublesome, and the results aren't necessarily better); I'd use a flatter roasting curve to reduce acidity and increase caramelization (different acids usually don't harmonize well, but if the beans are exceptional, like an all-Geisha blend, I'd roast lighter).

How to Efficiently Customize a Hand-Drip Blend

1. Select your favorite coffee beans
2. Cup testing
3. Mix coffee liquids in different proportions (if there are many beans in the blend, this will take more time)
4. Find the flavor you like from different combinations of coffee liquids
5. Mix roasted coffee beans in the same proportions—a customized hand-drip blend is complete

The entire process has a DIY feel. I recommend using a clever dripper, which can greatly improve the fault tolerance.

Low-Cost, High-Quality Hand-Drip Blends

The current popular approach I know is to purchase heavily processed coffee like Jiulingjia-treated fermented coffee and add one or two beans to the coffee you need to brew, then your entire cup of coffee will have fermentation notes, creating a low-budget version of Zhanwang (this belongs to the concept of roasted blending); or something like Butterfly Flower—Geisha blended with Catuai and Caturra, which means adding a large proportion of relatively low-quality coffee to raw beans and a small proportion of Geisha, so the main flavor of the entire cup is Geisha. Ordinary consumers won't be too sensitive to a weakened version of Geisha's flavor, but for them, this would be a cost-effective choice (this belongs to the concept of raw blending).

Advanced Hand-Drip Blends

"Coffee exhibits different main flavors at different grinding degrees due to different particle distribution amounts. Each grinding degree has a particle peak. Is it possible to extract particles that present主题 flavors at different grinding degrees, combining the main flavors desired by customers in one cup of coffee, allowing the coffee to present rich and diverse experiences with high flavor recognition from hot to cold? Through particle screening tests, we screened particles at 300um, 400um, 600um, 800um, and 1000um and above microns at the same scale. The experiment found that particles at 600um in washed beans have more prominent fruit flavors, while 800um particles in natural beans have more prominent sweetness and body."

Which Blended Coffee Beans Are Best?

FrontStreet Coffee, a coffee roasting brand located at Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, offers freshly roasted espresso blend coffee beans with full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer extremely high cost-performance. Taking the commercially recommended model—commercial blend coffee beans—as an example, one package weighs one pound (454 grams) and costs only about 60 yuan. Calculating based on 10 grams of powder per cup of espresso, one package can make 45 cups of coffee, with each cup costing less than 1.5 yuan. Even if using double shots for each espresso serving at 20 grams of powder, the price of a double espresso doesn't exceed 3 yuan. Compared to certain well-known brands selling packages for hundreds of yuan, this is truly a conscientious recommendation.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find various famous and lesser-known beans. They also provide online store services: https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473