Blend Coffee - How Are Coffee Beans Blended? Can Blended Coffee Beans Be Used for Pour-Over?

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Is Blend Coffee Specialty Coffee? Why Blend Coffee? How Are Coffee Blends Created? Can Blend Coffee Be Hand-Poured?

Regarding blend coffee, these four questions are frequently asked by many friends to FrontStreet Coffee's baristas. In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will provide detailed answers to these four commonly discussed topics.

Q1: Is Blend Coffee Specialty Coffee?

First, let's look at the definition of specialty coffee. In 1978, Ms. Erna Knutsen proposed this concept at the International Coffee Conference in France, and since then, "specialty coffee" has been widely referenced in the coffee industry. She stated at the time that specialty coffee refers to "coffee beans cultivated under unique microclimates and geographical conditions in producing regions, possessing regional flavor characteristics." FrontStreet Coffee believes that in addition to this fundamental principle, several other criteria must be screened: raw bean moisture content, uniformity of coffee bean size, identification of defective/flawed beans, basic grading selection by producing region, and cupping of coffee flavor. Only through strict testing against these layered standards can the truly "specialty" beans be selected.

Early blending was undoubtedly aimed at reducing costs. For example, using 70% cheap base beans to produce inexpensive coffee, with some better-flavored beans added for adjustment. However, in the specialty coffee era, cost reduction is no longer the sole objective. Customers are more concerned about flavor and are willing to pay higher prices for tastes they love.

Take for example the Warm Sun Blend Coffee Beans that FrontStreet Coffee consistently uses for espresso production. This blend consists of 40% sun-dried red cherry from Yirgacheffe and 60% Honduras whiskey barrel-fermented Sherry coffee beans. Both of these coffee beans can be traced back to their producing regions, regional altitudes, and coffee varieties, all carefully selected coffee beans. So, is this blended coffee bean considered a specialty coffee bean? Yes, it is a specialty coffee bean. However, if a coffee bean mixture includes Robusta coffee beans to make the blend richer, Robusta does not fall within the category of specialty coffee beans, so this type of blend is not specialty coffee.

Q2: Why Blend Coffee?

Blended coffee, also known as mixed coffee or espresso beans. FrontStreet Coffee believes that blended coffee involves mixing various single-origin coffee beans to fully leverage the strengths of each single-origin bean. Blends are created from coffee beans mixed from different producing regions to create a more balanced flavor profile. For example, if one coffee bean is smooth but lacks aroma, another bean rich in aroma can be added to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses—either complementing or enhancing in flavor—to create a richer new taste experience. Sometimes the beans are mixed first and then roasted; this is called raw blending. Sometimes coffee beans are mixed after roasting; this is called post-roast blending.

The main purposes for mixing different coffee beans include:

1. Stable flavor

Because coffee beans are an agricultural product, even the same type of coffee bean 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 taste

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

Q3: How Are Coffee Blends Created?

As mentioned above, there are raw blending and post-roast blending for coffee blends. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these two blending methods?

FrontStreet Coffee believes that the advantage of raw blending is that it can use the same roast degree to make the coffee tend toward stability and uniformity. Secondly, it can reduce the number of roasting sessions—complete in one roast, improving efficiency. The same roast degree can also greatly reduce quality control difficulty (the same roast means only needing to focus on one bean aging date, while raw blending can easily result in different roasting dates for several blended combination beans, leading to taste differences). However, the disadvantages of raw blending are also very obvious. Raw blending has significant limitations and is generally more recommended for beans with similar densities. For example, blending a coffee bean suitable for light roast with one suitable for dark roast and roasting them to the same degree can easily result in 1+1

FrontStreet Coffee believes that the advantage of post-roast blending is that each bean can be roasted to its optimal roast degree, maximizing the characteristics of each bean. However, the disadvantage of post-roast blending is that daily quality control and management become more difficult. Inconsistent roasting dates require attention to more aging periods. Imagine using 4-5 different coffee beans for post-roast blending—this product would require attention to 4-5 different roasting dates. When FrontStreet Coffee roasts the Warm Sun Blend, it uses the post-roast blending method, separately roasting the Honduras Sherry barrel coffee beans and the sun-dried Yirgacheffe red cherry to maximize the wine aroma of the Sherry barrel beans while preserving as much as possible the fruity acidity and citrus-berry aroma of the other sun-dried Yirgacheffe.

Q4: Can Blend Coffee Be Hand-Poured?

To summarize what was mentioned above, a "blend" refers to a mixture of two or more different coffee beans. In many people's minds, the stereotype of blends still remains with the blended coffee beans used in traditional espresso. In fact, blending does not equal espresso beans—blending is simply the concept of mixing different coffee beans for certain reasons, not exclusive to espresso. That is, blend beans ≠ espresso beans. Hand-pour coffee is just an extraction method, and blend is just a type of coffee bean. The two have no direct mutually determining relationship. Can blended coffee beans be used for hand-pour coffee? The answer is yes.

There are mainly two types of blended coffee beans on the market. One is blends from different producing regions, such as the FrontStreet Coffee Warm Sun Blend espresso beans mentioned above. This uses beans from Honduras and Ethiopia Yirgacheffe regions blended together, with Honduras Sherry barrel providing most of the flavor and Yirgacheffe providing more aroma and acidity.

The other is blends of different coffee bean varieties. As the name suggests, this involves mixing different varieties to create a blended bean. For example, Frontsteet's Flower Butterfly is famous for mixing about 70% Geisha variety. There's also FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Mirazu Estate Geisha Blend, which mixes half Geisha variety with half SL28, ET47, and Maico. However, FrontStreet Coffee believes that calling coffee beans mixed from different varieties "blends" is just to highlight a particular variety, not in the traditional sense of blending. Interestingly, if we also call coffee beans mixed from different varieties "blends," then most of the common coffee beans we encounter would also be blends, such as common Kenyan coffees that often mix SL28 with SL34.

Finally, returning to the question: can blend beans be used for hand-pour coffee? In fact, there are no hard rules prohibiting the use of blend beans for hand-pour coffee. If the coffee beans are of good quality, properly roasted, and brewed correctly, then blend beans can also taste very good. If you can taste flavors in the cup that wouldn't exist with just one type of bean, why not enjoy it?

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Important Notice :

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