What's the Difference Between Single Origin, SOE, and Blend Coffee? What Does SOE Mean? What is Mixed Coffee?

Introduction

Recently, many friends have started purchasing coffee beans to make coffee at home. However, coffee beans are categorized differently for various extraction methods, such as single origin, SOE, and blends. This has led to some confusion among those who are less familiar with coffee, making it difficult for them to know how to choose and where to start. Some friends have come to FrontStreet Coffee's store to consult with FrontStreet Coffee on how to make their selection.

In fact, FrontStreet Coffee has always shared related content in articles, but often only briefly. So today, FrontStreet Coffee will share in detail: what are the differences between single origin, SOE, and blended coffee beans, and how should we choose according to our equipment and preferences when purchasing coffee beans.

Single Origin Coffee Beans

First, let's introduce single origin coffee beans, also what we commonly call specialty coffee beans. Single origin coffee beans refer to coffee beans from a single origin, which can refer to a country, a region, a estate, or even a specific plot of land.

Because single origin coffee beans mainly emphasize the characteristic flavors of the coffee's origin, the vast majority of single origin coffee beans on the market use medium, medium-light, or even extremely light roasting degrees, aiming to better showcase the coffee's flavor expression. However, FrontStreet Coffee is not saying that all coffee beans are medium-light roasted. For example, FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain coffee, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate, and FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling use classic dark roasts. If your coffee making primarily uses methods other than espresso machines, such as pour-over, French press, siphon, AeroPress, cold brew, etc., then single origin coffee beans are an excellent choice. Because these brewing methods have higher fault tolerance, they can ensure that the value of single origin coffee beans is maximized "extracted"!

SOE (Single Origin Espresso)

Similarly, this doesn't mean single origin beans can't be used for espresso making. Of course, they can, but when we use single origin beans for espresso extraction, the espresso will have a distinctive name - SOE.

The full name of SOE is "Single Origin Espresso," which translates to espresso made from single origin coffee beans. In other words, SOE is espresso made from single origin coffee beans. Similarly, the purpose of using single origin coffee beans to make espresso is still to emphasize the characteristic flavors of the origin, but the main reason why people specifically distinguish it from single origin beans is that not all single origin beans are suitable for making SOE. For example, beans that are roasted too light are not very suitable for making SOE.

The reason is simple because espresso involves the making of milk coffee. Lightly roasted coffee beans have flavors that are mainly fresh and not particularly rich, so if they are made into milk coffee, the flavor will easily be covered by milk. If you want to make delicious milk coffee with them, you need to modify many parameters and make many adjustments; another reason is that some coffee beans have quite prominent acidity, and overly prominent acidity will form a sharp contrast with the taste of milk, which is not a positive expression and is very abrupt.

Therefore, not all coffee beans are suitable for making espresso. To be precise, the espresso they make is not suitable for making milk coffee. But this is not without solutions - by deepening the roast degree of coffee beans, we can make the espresso made from single origin beans compatible with milk coffee making.

The degree of roasting affects the taste and flavor expression of coffee beans! For example, when coffee beans are roasted lighter, the coffee made from them has higher acidity. And when coffee beans are roasted darker, the less acidity we can taste from the coffee, both because acidity is eliminated during roasting and because acidity is masked by other aromas produced by roasting. So, by deepening the roast degree of coffee beans, we can reduce the acidity in the coffee, making it better compatible with milk coffee making, while giving the coffee a more excellent mouthfeel. The only drawback is that the origin's flavor experience will be slightly reduced, as the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Because these single origin beans specifically for espresso making have a relatively deeper roast degree (deeper than regular light-roasted beans), merchants will specifically add the term SOE in the bean's description or selection section to distinguish them from regular single origin beans. For example, SOE beans, SOE roasting, etc. If your coffee making method is primarily espresso-based, and you want to more directly experience the origin flavors of coffee without too much acidity, then you can choose SOE-roasted single origin beans, or regular single origin beans can also work, but there will be more limitations and aspects that need adjustment.

Blended Coffee Beans

Finally, let's talk about blended beans! Blended coffee beans are the most commonly used type of coffee bean in espresso. Blended coffee beans, also known as blend coffee, refer to beans blended from coffee beans of different origins and processing methods.

We can understand the birth of blends as a human desire to have everything - wanting this, wanting that, and wanting more. Everyone hopes to get all quality experiences from one coffee bean, such as excellent coffee flavor, rich coffee mouthfeel, affordable price, and high stability, but often these ideals are difficult to achieve on a single single origin coffee bean. For example, although light-roasted coffee retains the most complete flavor, its mouthfeel is relatively inferior; while dark-roasted coffee has a rich and excellent mouthfeel, its flavor expression is not as abundant. Additionally, coffee beans are agricultural products, and their quality is affected by external factors such as climate during growth each year. Therefore, if you want to get all the advantages from a single origin coffee bean, it's a very difficult thing to do.

And blended coffee beans can help achieve your ideal, because through blending, we can achieve an effect of 1+1 greater than 2. For example, combining the flavor of bean A with the mouthfeel of bean B to obtain a coffee with both excellent flavor and mouthfeel; or we can blend coffee beans from three different origins to dilute the importance of each bean! This way, when one of the coffee beans is not as high-quality next year due to weather issues in its origin, we can find coffee beans from other origins to replace it, because its importance in the entire blend is diluted, so even if replaced, it won't have too much impact on the taste (this was the purpose of early blends). This approach can also help you reduce costs and create a coffee bean with high cost performance. For specific methods, everyone can refer to this article → "How to Blend Coffee Beans?", FrontStreet Coffee won't elaborate further~

Because blended beans have been used more in espresso making since "ancient times," the design of blended beans is based on their use in espresso. For example, using a relatively deeper roast degree (more suitable for milk coffee making), and large package designs such as 1 pound, 1 kilogram, etc. (single origin beans are generally packaged in half-pound or 100g packages). If everyone's primary use for coffee beans is making espresso, then specialty blended coffee beans for espresso will be an excellent choice. They not only have a roast degree more suitable for espresso but also higher cost performance. But quality needs to be chosen according to your wallet. If you just want to supplement your daily caffeine, then a blend of commercial coffee beans is completely sufficient, usually priced at 50-80/pound, which is also the blend combination used by most coffee shops.

And if you want coffee with more excellent flavor expression, you can choose a blend using specialty coffee beans. For example, the FrontStreet Coffee Sunflower Warm Sunshine Espresso Blend used at FrontStreet Coffee's store is made from two specialty coffee beans, but its price is usually twice as high as commercial blends, so~ choose for yourself~

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