Can Pour-Over Coffee Beans Be Used as Blended Coffee? What Does Pour-Over Blend Coffee Mean?

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What Is Pour-Over Coffee Blending?

Can pour-over coffee beans be blended? What does pour-over blending mean? How do you brew pour-over blended beans?

Generally, pour-over blending focuses on harmonizing flavors, aromas, and textures around a central theme. By selecting preferred tastes from sweet, bitter, or acidic coffees and mixing them in specific proportions, you can create distinctive flavor profiles. Coffee flavor encompasses the aroma perceived before drinking, the aroma while in the mouth, and the aroma that rises from the throat after swallowing. By selecting preferred aromas, you can achieve rich textures while maintaining a focused flavor direction. Through pour-over blending, you can emphasize coffee flavors and aromas to create your own "signature coffee."

Before beginning your blending journey, it's essential to understand the flavor profiles of different coffee varieties from around the world, as beans from different origins possess unique characteristics.

Coffee Regional Characteristics

Central and South American coffees offer gentle flavors and balanced aromas; African coffees present refreshing qualities with enchanting floral notes; Asian coffees provide rich, full-bodied sensations. Understanding these regional differences allows you to create excellent pour-over blends, either by combining beans from the same region or selecting varieties from different continents.

Blending 2-3 varieties and giving your creation a special name makes for a wonderful personal treat or gift. The most representative methods in pour-over blending are "roast then blend" versus "blend then roast." Different approaches to blending before roasting yield different results, each with distinct advantages and disadvantages. While it's difficult to say which method is superior, "roast then blend" typically performs better in terms of flavor, while "blend then roast" offers advantages in management.

Roast Then Blend Method

This approach involves roasting each variety separately before blending them in specific proportions according to the desired coffee beverage and flavor profile. Individually roasted beans are marked and mixed by hand in small quantities according to fixed proportions; alternatively, blending machines with mixing functions can be used to achieve optimal coffee flavor presentation. The disadvantage is that separate roasting requires strict quality control to maintain flavor characteristics.

Blend Then Roast Method

This method involves mixing green beans from different varieties before roasting them together. During roasting, the aromas of different varieties combine, reducing individual aromatic characteristics while emphasizing overall aroma. The advantage of roasting green beans all at once is simplicity and ease of process, while the disadvantage is the inability to preserve the original characteristics of each individual green bean.

There are no fixed formulas for blended beans. Although you can simply mix green coffee beans according to personal preference, understanding the aromatic characteristics of different bean types is essential for creating delicious blends. Generally, blended beans combine 2-5 varieties, but for beginners, starting with 3 or fewer varieties is more likely to succeed. It's recommended to increase the proportion of beans with flavors you want to emphasize (whether green beans or roasted beans) to over 30%.

Representative Pour-Over Blending Methods

1. For those who prefer refreshing acidity, you can blend FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Excelso, FrontStreet Coffee's Mexico, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Santos, and FrontStreet Coffee's Yemen Mocha.

2. If you want a sweeter profile, simply blend FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Santos, FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Excelso, and FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesia Java.

Water Temperature for Pour-Over Blends

The optimal water temperature for pour-over blended coffee is closely related to the roast level of the coffee beans. Temperature that's too high will cause over-extraction, bringing out more bitterness from the coffee beans, while temperature that's too low will result in sour flavors and insufficient aroma. Therefore, finding the most suitable temperature requires continuous experimentation.

Generally, lightly roasted coffee beans require higher temperatures to stimulate aroma development, with 93°C-97°C being more suitable. Dark roasted coffee beans, however, require slightly lower water temperatures to prevent aroma from dissipating too quickly, with 85°C-88°C being more appropriate.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Recommendations:

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 89-90°C

Grind Size: Fuji Royal R-440 grinder setting 3.5

Brewing Method: Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, using 15g of coffee. First infusion with 25g of water for a 25-second bloom. Second infusion to 120g, then pause the pour. Wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to halfway, then continue pouring slowly until reaching 225g total. Extraction time approximately 2:00 minutes.

Analysis: Using a three-stage brewing method to clearly define the front, middle, and back-end flavors of the coffee. Because the V60 has many ribs and drains quickly, pausing during pouring helps extend extraction time.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473