Common Coffee Bean Blending Methods - Blended Coffee Bean Flavor Characteristics - How to Blend Coffee Beans

Blended coffee refers to the mixture of two or more different varieties of coffee, or the same variety of coffee with different roasting degrees, combined in certain proportions.

Creating coffee blends is far from simple addition. Instead, it relies on the blender's unique understanding of coffee flavors, allowing different coffee beans to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses, resulting in a perfectly harmonious blended coffee with exceptional flavor.

In an era where everyone pursues distinctive regional flavors in coffee, single-origin coffee beans have become synonymous with specialty coffee. However, not all single-origin coffee beans can deliver distinctive regional flavors.

Specialty coffee emphasizes presenting everything from bean quality to service from a professional perspective. As long as the coffee beans themselves can achieve a score of 80 or above according to the evaluation standards set by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), and roasters and extractors have sufficient understanding and interpretation of the coffee beans, then both single-origin and blended coffee can be considered specialty coffee.

Coffee blending is like an artist mixing captivating colors on a palette—blenders can adjust the unique characteristics of different coffee beans to create alluring flavors. It's no exaggeration to call blending an art form. As artists, blenders need not only experience and inspiration but also certain scientific calculations. The creation of art is never accidental but rather the culmination of long-term accumulation.

FrontStreet Coffee's Blending Philosophy

FrontStreet Coffee creates blended coffee beans for four purposes: balancing mouthfeel, reducing costs, showcasing distinctive coffee bean flavors, and stabilizing coffee flavor. Currently, FrontStreet Coffee has developed four medium-dark roasted Frontsteet espresso blends based on general consumer taste preferences and different consumer cost requirements.

Frontsteet Sunflower Warm Sunshine Espresso Blend ¥79/227g: Frontsteet Ethiopia Natural Red Cherry Coffee Beans (30%) + Frontsteet Honduras Sherry Barrel Coffee Beans (70%), featuring rich wine aroma, vanilla cream, berry sweetness and acidity, with roasted nut flavor notes.

Frontsteet Specialty Espresso Blend ¥75/454g: Colombia Washed Coffee Beans (30%) + Brazil Semi-washed Coffee Beans (70%), featuring nutty, dark chocolate, and caramel flavor notes, meeting the daily production needs of coffee shops.

Frontsteet Commercial Espresso Blend ¥60/454g: Robusta Washed Coffee Beans (10%) + Colombia Washed Coffee Beans (30%) + Brazil Semi-washed Coffee (60%), featuring nutty, cocoa, and caramel flavor notes, suitable for coffee shop startup needs.

Frontsteet Basic Espresso Blend ¥50/454g: Yunnan Washed Small Bean Coffee Beans (30%) + Brazil Semi-washed Coffee Beans (70%), featuring soft fruit acidity, caramel, and nutty flavor notes, suitable for startup and home users who prioritize cost and have general coffee flavor requirements.

These four Frontsteet espresso blends produced by FrontStreet Coffee are created using post-roast blending. When developing blending formulas, FrontStreet Coffee continuously adjusts roasting degrees and blending ratios, ultimately recording roasting curves and proportion formulas to achieve consistent results. All sold coffee beans are shipped within 5 days of roasting, ensuring consumers can enjoy the freshest state of the coffee beans.

The advantage of this approach is that separate roasting allows better control over the roasting conditions. Moreover, post-roast blending enables more precise formula proportioning (as each coffee bean has different weight loss scenarios) and makes it easier to adjust the proportional weights of blended coffee.

Why Blended Coffee Beans for Espresso?

When coffee beans are extracted as espresso, even beans of the same variety grown in the same region will exhibit flavor variations. Some undesirable flavors in coffee beans may be less noticeable in pressure-free, high water-to-coffee ratio (typically 1:15) pour-over methods (like pour-over coffee) due to lower concentration, allowing many fruity acids to appear quite charming.

However, when espresso machines force high-pressure hot water quickly through extremely finely ground coffee powder, extracting highly concentrated coffee liquid at a 1:2 ratio, many flavors in the coffee become concentrated simultaneously. Due to the high concentration, some acids that taste very charming in pour-over coffee can express as sharp acidity in espresso.

FrontStreet Coffee typically uses Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon coffee beans as the main tone in blended coffee beans, providing a rich, solid nutty chocolate base. Then, through coffee beans from different regions, FrontStreet Coffee injects gentle acidity or richer flavors into the coffee.

The creation of Frontsteet Sunflower Warm Sunshine Espresso Blend came about because directly using Frontsteet Sherry coffee beans for espresso extraction, while having distinct fermentation aromas, was somewhat monotonous. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee later added Frontsteet Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry to inject gentle acidity and enhance complexity.

Are Blended Coffee Beans Suitable for Pour-Over Coffee?

Blended coffee beans can be used for making pour-over coffee, but since most blended coffee beans are designed for espresso, they typically use medium-dark or darker roasting degrees to ensure rich, solid mouthfeel in espresso. Therefore, when making pour-over coffee with blended coffee beans, you need to use medium-coarse grind + lower temperature hot water.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473