Top Italian Coffee Blend Brands & Complete Guide to Espresso Blends

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Coffee, as one of the three major beverages in the world, comes in many varieties. Have you ever heard of blended coffee? Today, we'll introduce you to blended coffee beans, explain common methods for making mixed coffee, and discuss the benefits of drinking coffee. For all coffee lovers, let's explore together.

Blended Coffee

Blended coffee, also known as comprehensive coffee or mixed coffee, is one of the general classifications of coffee. Currently popular Italian coffees almost all belong to the category of blended coffee. We generally mix two or more different varieties of coffee, or the same variety of coffee with different degrees of roasting, creating a unique flavor by balancing acidity, bitterness, sweetness, aroma, and body.

Blended coffee is by no means a simple addition process. Instead, through the blender's unique understanding of coffee flavors, different coffee beans complement each other's strengths and weaknesses, creating a perfectly flavored blended coffee. High-quality blended coffee, after completion, offers a refreshing aroma, smooth and refreshing taste, and golden color - truly among the finest coffees.

Purpose of Blended Coffee Beans

1. Stable Flavor

Since coffee beans are an agricultural product, even the same variety of coffee beans will have different flavors each year. Therefore, mixing several types of coffee beans together solves this problem well, allowing the taste to remain basically consistent year after year.

2. Balanced Mouthfeel

Espresso machines have a characteristic of amplifying the most prominent flavor characteristic of coffee beans. Therefore, we almost never use single-variety coffee to make espresso. Otherwise, if that coffee bean is quite bitter, the resulting espresso will be exceptionally bitter; if it's acidic, it will be very acidic. Therefore, we need to balance various flavors through blending.

3. Cost Reduction

In reality, cost reduction is achieved because coffee-growing regions are often affected by natural and man-made disasters, leading to reduced production. At that time, since it's a blend, we only need to find a bean with a similar taste to replace the corresponding coffee bean in the formula, rather than paying high prices to purchase coffee beans that have increased in price due to reduced production.

However, in China, we have creatively created coffee blends such as "Blue Mountain style," meaning that since we can't drink real Blue Mountain, we'll drink coffee with a Blue Mountain flavor - after all, who knows what Blue Mountain coffee actually tastes like.

A good formula can create a coffee legend. For example, brands we Chinese are familiar with like ILLY and LAVAZA are among the leaders in this field. We hope that China will soon develop truly Chinese-style blended coffees that suit Chinese tastes, rather than simply mixing low-quality coffee beans after dark roasting just to pursue low costs.

Which Beans Should Beginners Choose for Blending?

Below we introduce three most representative blending ratios. Of course, gradually you can choose your favorite blending types according to your own taste.

① Acid-leaning Espresso Blending Method:

Colombia 30%, Brazil 60%, Guatemala 10%

② General Blended Coffee Blending Method:

Colombia 30%, Brazil 60%, Robusta 10%.

③ Bitter-tasting Commercial Blended Coffee Blending Method:

Colombia 30%, Brazil 30%, Kilimanjaro 30%, Robusta 10%.

Types of Blended Coffee

Due to the different types of coffee beans, the blended coffee produced has different tastes, and therefore blended coffee also has different types.

1. Balanced Flavored Blended Coffee

Formula: Guatemala SHB (30%), Mexico AL (30%), Brazil NO.219 (20%), Kilimanjaro AA (10%).

Premium blended coffee is the perfect combination of acidity, bitterness, and aroma. Using highly acidic Guatemalan coffee beans, Mexican coffee beans with both acidity and sweetness, and Brazilian coffee beans with soft bitterness, these beans are blended in equal proportions, then mixed with an appropriate amount of highly acidic Kilimanjaro coffee beans to create a blended coffee with balanced taste and moderate concentration.

2. Bitterness-focused Blended Coffee

Formula: Mandheling G1 (40%), Colombia SUP (30%), Brazil NO.219 (20%), Kilimanjaro AA (10%).

Using strong-flavored coffee beans, Mandheling from Sumatra, Indonesia, Colombian beans with rich bitterness and acidity, Brazilian coffee beans with moderate bitterness and acidity, and Kilimanjaro beans with acidity as the main characteristic, a blended coffee with heavier bitterness is created.

3. Acidity-focused Blended Coffee

Formula: Kilimanjaro AA (40%), Moka Highland Harar (20%), Brazil NO.219 (20%), Hawaii Kona NO.1 (20%).

Using Kilimanjaro beans as the base, complemented by soft-flavored Moka Highland Harar from Ethiopia and Brazilian beans, as well as moderately acidic Hawaii Kona, creates a mellow coffee with prominent acidity.

4. Aroma-focused Blended Coffee

Formula: Guatemala SHB (40%), Kilimanjaro AA (30%), Moka Highland Harar (30%).

Aroma-focused blended coffee mixes various coffee beans with different characteristics to make the aroma richer. Using aromatic Guatemala SHB as the main component, complemented by acidity-focused Kilimanjaro beans and naturally fruity Moka Highland Harar, creates an aromatic rich comprehensive coffee.

5. American Blended Coffee

Formula: Brazil NO.219 (50%), Mexico AL (30%), Jamaica Washed Beans (20%).

Using medium-roasted coffee beans, mainly balanced acid-bitter Brazilian coffee beans, complemented by sweet and sour Mexican beans and Jamaican washed beans with aroma and bitterness, creates a uniquely flavored American blended coffee.

6. Rich and Full-bodied Blended Coffee

Formula: Colombia SUP (50%), Brazil NO.219 (30%), Java Robusta WIBI (20%).

To highlight rich and full-bodied flavor, select full-bodied Colombian beans with moderate acidity, complemented by balanced Brazilian coffee beans, and a blend with rich aroma and prominent bitterness.

There are two blending methods for blended beans: blend after roasting (post-roast blend) and blend before roasting (pre-roast blend), also known as "shu pin" (cooked blend) and "sheng pin" (raw blend). The latter poses a greater challenge to the roaster. Letting blended beans rest for a few more days is to allow the characteristics between beans to merge, achieving balanced and unified flavor. Post-roast blends generally need to rest for about a week; pre-roast blends can be used after 3-4 days of resting, because during roasting, different beans have already influenced each other.

Four Basic Principles of Blending

1. First decide on the base coffee beans

If it's your favorite bean, use it in a proportion of more than 50% - this is the secret to ensuring your blend won't go wrong. First use your favorite bean as the base, then add beans that compensate for shortcomings and beans that enhance aroma, blending in certain proportions.

2. Blend beans with opposite characteristics

Wanting more obvious acidity by directly putting two obviously acidic beans together will actually cancel each other out. It's best to choose balanced or bitter-focused beans that can complement the original flavor of the beans. Blending various beans with opposite characteristics together is a key technique.

3. Don't use too many types of beans

If you mix too many types of beans, the difficulty of blending increases, and the flavor becomes blurred. Basically, the base beans plus one or two for blending are sufficient. If you still feel it's not enough, try using beans with different roasting degrees for blending.

4. Vary blending ratios according to preference

According to the desired flavor, you can appropriately blend beans from different origins. This is a very effective method - as long as you master the balance of blending, you can let the characteristics of each bean be fully expressed.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Espresso Blended Coffee Bean Brands

Located at Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, the coffee roasting brand - FrontStreet Coffee - offers freshly roasted Frontsteet Espresso Blend Coffee Beans with full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, the cost-performance ratio is extremely high. Taking the commercial recommendation - Frontsteet Commercial Blend Coffee Beans - as an example, one pack weighs 454 grams (1 pound) with a price of only about 60 RMB. Calculating based on 10g of powder per espresso shot, one pack can make 45 cups of coffee, with each cup costing less than 1.5 RMB. Even using double shots for each espresso at 20g of powder per serving, the price of a double espresso doesn't exceed 3 RMB. Compared to certain well-known brands that sell packages for hundreds of RMB, this is truly a conscientious recommendation, suitable for daily operational needs.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find various famous and lesser-known beans, while also providing 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