What is "Blended Milk" Coffee? What Does Blended Coffee Beans Mean? DIY Milk Blends!

The Art of Milk Blending in Coffee

"Blend" is a term that frequently appears on coffee shop menus. Generally, blending primarily refers to the combination of coffee beans. By combining coffee beans from different regions, with different processing methods, or different characteristics, the goal is to achieve a 1+1>2 effect. But did you know? Besides coffee beans, the milk used in milk-based coffee is sometimes also "blended."

Milk blending is not aimless; it's also an action taken to achieve the 1+1>2 effect. For example, through blending, milk can have a more suitable concentration, or through blending, milk can have a higher sweetness. The specific milk sources and proportions will vary according to the blender's goals. So today, FrontStreet Coffee will share what kinds of "milk blending" exist in the coffee world!

1. Purified Milk Blending

The popularity of Dirty coffee in the past two years has brought attention to a dairy product—highly concentrated purified milk. Because it has a higher concentration than regular fresh milk, purified milk offers more outstanding texture and flavor. Dirty coffee made with it not only has more distinct visual layers but also provides a more unique drinking experience.

The production of purified milk is quite simple. The most widespread method is: freeze purification. Simply put the milk in the freezer for freezing, then take it out to thaw the next day. Because substances like lactose, protein, and fat thaw before water, we only need to collect the front and middle sections of the liquid that dissolves from the frozen milk to obtain milk with higher concentration.

Although the production method is simple, because this approach wasn't widespread during the early popularity of Dirty coffee, or because large-scale production was troublesome, most businesses at that time chose to purchase commercially available purified milk. The purified milk sold at that time was all extremely concentrated, not suitable for making all milk-based coffees (it easily overpowers the coffee flavor, or the resulting milk coffee becomes too heavy). Therefore, to dilute purified milk to a concentration that doesn't affect the final product, many businesses adopted the "blending" approach. By blending purified milk and fresh milk in a 1:1 ratio, they could obtain high-concentration milk that was higher than regular fresh milk but not too prominent. Coffee made with it not only has higher sweetness but also greater richness and smoothness. So we can see that the purpose of blending milk here is to dilute/increase milk concentration.

2. Plant-Based Milk Blending

As is well known, plant-based milk is not a dairy product; it's a grain beverage made from plant seeds (or fruits) rich in protein and fat with water as the base. Because its appearance resembles milk, it carries the title of "milk."

The audience for plant-based milk is not just friends with lactose intolerance; its unique aroma has also attracted many people. It's precisely because the aroma of plant-based milk is very special that some friends have developed entirely new ideas in product development, such as using blending methods to give products more diverse expressions. A relatively common blending solution is one plant-based milk with one fresh milk. This way, the blended milk can have the aroma of plant-based milk while maintaining the texture of dairy milk. FrontStreet Coffee has tried several times using oat milk and milk blending to make latte coffee, and as mentioned above, the flavor expression is very unique!

A more advanced approach can be like the competitors in world championships, choosing purified plant-based milk, dairy milk, or two or more products for blending, making the final coffee richer in layers, with more unique and prominent flavors.

3. Enzymatic Milk Blending

As is well known, the lactose in milk is a "disaccharide," composed of glucose and galactose. Its inherent sweetness is not very high and is difficult for people to detect. However! If we can break it down into monosaccharides, its sweetness will be amplified, increasing to about twice its original level. Therefore, many businesses, in order to enhance the sweetness of milk, use an enzyme called lactase to break down lactose, thereby obtaining milk with higher sweetness. Such milk is called "enzymatic milk."

Similar to purified milk, the blending partner for enzymatic milk is also mainly fresh milk (or others), with the purpose of controlling the sweetness of the milk. If you want the milk to be sweeter, then the proportion of enzymatic milk should be higher.

4. Milk Powder Blending

In the article "Can You Make Latte with Milk Powder?", FrontStreet Coffee mentioned a point: in world competitions, some competitors use homemade milk powder blended with milk to make milk coffee. That's right, after drying milk into milk powder, it's mixed with fresh milk.

Similarly, the purpose of doing this is to freely adjust the concentration and sweetness of the milk, allowing the milk's performance to better fit one's goals, thereby creating more outstanding milk coffee. To be honest, FrontStreet Coffee had actually tried such blending solutions when testing milk powder lattes before.

Although the quality of the milk powder wasn't as high as that of competition competitors, the resulting latte coffee still showed good performance. So if everyone has extra materials at home, you might as well give it a try~ (But be careful, adding too much milk powder can make it heavy, and the specific amount to add needs to be determined based on the current coffee's roast degree and flavor expression)

The above four are currently the more common types of milk blending. If you usually have different blending methods, feel free to share them in the comments section~

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