Recently, there are regular customers who often come to the Front Street store to buy the Front Street Italian blended coffee beans. However, new customers who come to the Front Street are very puzzled. They don’t know why the Front Street barista mixes several types of beans for sale. In fact, these are blended coffee beans, also called mixed coffee. In this article, Front Street will educate you on what blended coffee beans are!
What is coffee blend
Coffee fans all know that single-origin coffee is coffee beans from a single production area, such as Front Street Ethiopian Yirgacheffe or Front Street Indonesian Mandheling. These are single coffee beans, and the brewed flavor also has the local flavor characteristics of the production area. Blend coffee is a blend of single-origin coffee beans from different production areas. However, Front Street wants to emphasize that blending is not random, but requires strict requirements on blending proportions and flavor coordination to create delicious coffee.
Let’s take the Front Street Essaya coffee beans and the Front Street Indonesian Mandheling. The flavors of the two coffee beans are completely opposite. One is fresh lemon and citrus, and the other is herbal and earthy. Assuming a 1:1 mix, Front Street wouldn’t even dare to think how dark that flavor would be. Therefore, the beans are also very particular and are not randomly matched.
Front Street believes that blending coffee beans is an art. First of all, coffee blenders must understand the different flavor characteristics of coffee in major production areas, so that they can mix attractive aromas and make the coffee more delicious. This not only requires a lot of coffee experience and inspiration, but also precise calculation of the ratio. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the process of blending coffee beans is an art.
So since it is blending, it naturally refers to the blending of two or more original beans, but a special example is that the same coffee beans with different roasting degrees can be blended together, or even new crop of the same coffee beans can be blended with aged coffee or old crop. Therefore, the type referred to in blending is no longer a narrow coffee variety, but extends to the flavor of coffee in a broad sense. Generally, 2 to 6 types of coffee beans are used when blending. Too many types will fail to express the unique flavor of coffee.
Why blend coffee
Then there will definitely be coffee fans who will ask Front Street. The flavor of single-origin coffee is already excellent enough, why do you still need it?Blended coffee beansWhat?
In fact, the origin of blended coffee comes from Italy. The common Italian coffee in cafes, whether it is latte, mocha or cappuccino, all use blended beans. This is because blended coffee beans can make the original coffee that is not rich enough in flavor more mellow, so there will naturally be a market for it. The original emergence of Italian blended coffee was due to the popularity of rich, sweet and bitter coffee at that time.espresso, and coffee from a single origin has a strong flavor, that is, both advantages and disadvantages coexist. In addition, high-quality single coffee beans are expensive, and blended coffee is more cost-effective and lower than single-origin coffee, but the flavor can also be unique. Therefore, many Italians chose blended coffee instead of single-origin coffee at that time. This is how blended coffee developed and is popular today.
The main purpose of blending coffee is to maintain a stable flavor and balanced taste. Because coffee berries are always a crop, the flavor of the coffee berries will be unstable every year due to climate and environmental problems. It may be sweeter this year and less sweet next year. Mixing several coffee beans together can solve this problem very well, and at least keep the flavor of the coffee tasted consistent every year.
Another point is that some coffee fans must be wondering why Italian coffee cannot be made with single-origin coffee beans. This is because one of the characteristics of Italian coffee machines is to amplify the most prominent coffee flavor of coffee beans. For example, the main flavor of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe is citrus citric acid, so the Italian coffee machine will amplify its acidity, while the main flavor of Indonesian Mantani is herbal earthy and bitter, thenespressoThe opportunity will amplify the bitter flavor, so FrontStreet Coffee does not use a single variety of coffee beans to make it.espresso, otherwise the coffee produced will be very unbalanced and affect the taste, which is whyespressoThe reason why it is made with blended coffee beans.
How to blend coffee beans
Coffee blends are divided into raw blends and cooked blends. Raw blends are made by mixing the coffee beans and then roasting them, while cooked blends are roasted first and then mixed. Front Street believes that the advantage of raw pint is that the same roasting level can be used to make the coffee flavor stable and uniform, and it can be roasted in one time. The same roasting level can also greatly reduce the difficulty of quality control and improve efficiency. However, it is not perfect. The limitations of raw pint are very large, so Front Street generally recommends using raw pint. Coffee bean densities are relatively close to several beans, otherwise the flavor will not be as good as the flavor of the original production area. For example, beans that are always suitable for light roasting must be roasted together with beans that are also light roasted to achieve double the effect. If a light roasted bean and a dark roasted bean are roasted together, wouldn't it be incompatible, which will lead to poor flavor.
Front Street believes that the advantage of cooked roasting is that it can roast each bean according to the optimal roasting degree, maximizing the characteristics of each bean. However, the disadvantage of cooked coffee beans is that daily quality control and management will be more difficult. Inconsistent roasting dates require more attention to the bean-raising period. Imagine using 4 to 5 coffee beans to make cooked coffee beans. This product requires attention to 4 to 5 roasting dates. Therefore, both cooked and raw spellings have various advantages and disadvantages, but the purpose is the same, which is to make the coffee flavor more delicious.
Of course, there are two ways to blend coffee. One is a blend of coffee beans from different production areas, such as the best-selling Front Street Classic Blend and Front Street Commercial Blend. Both products are based on Arabica and add a small amount of Robusta to make the concentrate rich in coffee oil and enhance the body.
Another blending method is the blending of different coffee varieties. For example, the Front Street Butterfly is famous for mixing about 70% of the Gesha variety. There is also the Front Street Costa Rica Mila Bead Manor Geisha blend, which mixes half of the Gesha variety and half of SL28, ET47, and Maico. However, Front Street believes that calling coffee beans mixed from different varieties a "blend" is just to highlight a certain variety and is not a blend in the traditional sense. Interestingly, if we call mixing different varieties of coffee beans a blend, then most of our common coffee beans are also blends. For example, in Kenya, SL28 and SL34 are often mixed.
Four blends of coffee beans from FrontStreet Coffee
As mentioned above, blending coffee beans is an art, and it is not something you can just blend together. Instead, it takes the coffee blender’s repeated attempts to blend a cup of coffee with good flavor. Therefore, the Front Street roasters have also repeatedly tested the blends to come up with the options currently available in the Front Street store: the Front Street Sunflower Warm Blend, the Front Street Boutique Blend, the Front Street Commercial Blend, and the Italian Moka Pot Coffee Bean-Front Street Black Cocoa Blend recommended by many baristas. The difference between these blends is to create balanced and high-quality blended flavors for different price points. Below Front Street will introduce these four blended coffees in detail.
Front Street Premium Italian Blend Coffee Beans
This blend is made from coffee beans from Brazil and Colombia. It tastes like a light roasted grassy aroma with a slightly bitter taste, and is sweet and smooth, with a soothing aftertaste. This is because the coffee beans from the Cymbidium producing area in Colombia have a pleasant sour taste, a mellow smell, moderate acidity, and rich sweetness that is very durable.The coffee beans from the Cerrado region of Brazil have a pleasant sweet and bitter taste and are extremely smooth in the mouth. Therefore, the combination is absolutely perfect and can meet the daily production needs of coffee shops.
front street businessItalian blended coffee beans
This front street blend uses coffee beans from Brazil, Colombia and 10% Robusta coffee beans. The taste is classic. Front Street believes that this blend tastes rich in oil and texture, with the sweetness of caramel, and also has the flavor of nuts, cocoa, and dark chocolate. It has a balance of sweet and sour, a little bit of sweetness and bitterness, and a long-lasting aftertaste. This Front Street commercial blend uses the same ratio of Colombian and Brazilian coffee beans as the Front Street boutique blend. The difference is that Robusta is also added to provide rich oils, making the coffee taste more mellow and suitable for daily shop opening needs.
Front Street Dark Cocoa BasicsItalian blended coffee beans
This blend is blended with coffee beans from Brazil and Yunnan. Front Street thinks it tastes like soft fruit acid and caramel sweetness, as well as nutty and dark chocolate flavors. It is smooth and viscous, but has a light taste. This is because the natural conditions of Yunnan are very similar to Colombia, with high altitude, large temperature difference between day and night, mellow flavor, moderate sourness, rich and mellow taste, uniform particles, rich oil content and fruity aroma, and its quality and taste are similar to Colombian coffee. However, the taste is still slightly lighter than that of Colombia, while the coffee beans from the Cerrado region of Brazil have a pleasant sweet and bitter taste and are extremely smooth in the mouth. Therefore, the flavor of mixing these two coffee beans is also good, and the Italian Moka Pot Coffee Bean-Front Street Black Cocoa Blended Coffee Bean recommended by many baristas is very cost-effective. It is suitable for entry-level Italian players and small coffee shops. It is also suitable for coffee shops and home users who prioritize cost and have average flavor requirements.
For hand brewing with coffee blends
Blended coffee is not only for espresso coffee, it can also be used for hand brewing, but the brewed flavor is always slightly different from the flavor brewed by an espresso machine. However, Front Street believes that the different flavors when brewed by hand are also very special, so you can choose either hand brewing or espresso machine, just make it according to your preference.
Then Front Street will share the hand-brew data with friends who want to brew their own coffee.
Front Street Pour over(V60) coffee parameters: kono filter cup, powder volume 15g, water temperature 90°C, powder-to-water ratio 1:15, grinding degree (the passing rate of No. 20 standard sieve is 80%, which is coarser than the grinding degree of Italian coffee)
For the brewing technique, the front street adopts segmented extraction. Use 30g of water for steaming for 30 seconds. When the water level drops to 125g, continue to pour water until the powder bed is exposed. When the water level drops and the powder bed is exposed, continue to pour water until the powder bed is exposed. When the water level drops and the powder bed is exposed, remove the filter cup. (Steaming starts timing) The extraction time is 2'00".
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
