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Why is SOE Single Origin Espresso So Expensive? Does It Taste Good? Recommended SOE Single Origin Coffee Beans

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, When you visit a coffee shop and order a latte or Americano, you'll often hear the barista ask: "Would you like SOE or a blend?" At that moment, you might think: "Huh? What's the difference?! But it looks more expensive, so it must taste much better! I'll try the SOE then~" So what exactly is SOE all about

When you go to a coffee shop and order a latte or Americano, you'll often hear the barista ask: "Do you want SOE or blend?" At that moment, you might think: "Huh? What's the difference?! But it looks more expensive, so it must taste much better! Let me try the SOE~"

What exactly is SOE?

SOE (Single Origin Espresso) represents espresso made from coffee beans sourced from a single origin/region/estate. The practice of using single-origin coffee beans to make espresso first appeared at the 2007 World Barista Championship. The emergence of SOE broke the previous belief that espresso only needed stable bitterness (not meant as a derogatory term) and could still showcase rich, mellow coffee flavor when mixed with milk or water, so people often used blended coffee beans to achieve flavor stability.

As the concept of specialty coffee becomes increasingly popular among consumers, from single-origin pour-over coffee to single-origin espresso, it reflects coffee enthusiasts' ultimate pursuit of coffee flavor. This has also led many people to form an ingrained thinking that SOE coffee tastes better than blended coffee.

Is SOE definitely better than espresso made from blended coffee beans?

Not necessarily! Some SOEs can indeed achieve both flavor and richness, showing special performance when mixed with milk or water. However, in most cases, after trying a coffee beverage based on SOE, people will feel: "Actually, it's not that amazing. It's not as good as one made from blended coffee beans." Why does this situation occur?

First, coffee is an agricultural product. Even for the same coffee bean, the effects of climate and soil cultivation/different roasting approaches can lead to certain flavor differences. If you drink a very good SOE coffee in a café and come back after some time to find it's the same coffee bean but doesn't taste as good as before, perhaps this coffee bean is from the new harvest season/the roasting approach has changed, causing the coffee bean's own flavor to be different.

In the past, people felt that single-origin coffee beans were generally of average quality, and the flavor extracted as espresso was quite erratic, so they thought of improving the flavor by blending coffee beans. This could solve the problem of excessive flavor differences in espresso from the same shop due to different harvest times, slightly different roasting approaches, or crop failure of a particular coffee bean.

Second, hoping to express clear coffee flavors, many people choose some light-roasted single-origin coffee beans. Although light-roasted coffee beans have obvious flavors, they often lack richness. Perhaps this coffee bean has balanced flavor and body when making pour-over coffee, but when made into espresso, because the extraction time is not long, the rich substances in the light-roasted coffee beans have not yet been released, resulting in a thin situation. After adding milk or water, the coffee taste becomes directly unnoticeable, and it tastes rather bland.

Third, pressure-based extraction can overly amplify the flavor of coffee beans, easily producing unpleasant expressions. When FrontStreet Coffee daily extracts light-roasted washed Yirgacheffe coffee beans using pour-over method, the flavor表现为柑橘、花香、蜂蜜、茶感明显. If the same coffee bean is used to extract espresso, the flavor easily shows sharp acidity, astringency, making one tremble after taking a sip.

Taking pour-over coffee as an example, most delicious coffee beans are roasted very lightly, but they don't necessarily perform well when extracted with pressure-based coffee machines. Therefore, when buying single-origin coffee beans to make SOE, you can choose medium-roasted coffee beans or select single-origin coffee beans specifically designed for SOE.

How to know if a shop's SOE is successful?

This can be viewed in two parts. One part is whether enthusiasts who understand the SOE concept/came to this shop because of SOE are satisfied with this coffee and keep thinking about it; the other part is whether friends without SOE concept feel this coffee tastes better than ordinary coffee.