Blends + Blending
Table of Contents
Goal and Profile
Coffee Choices
Pre- or Post-Roast Blending
Describing Your Blend
Blends in The Marketplace
Blending Equipment
As specialty coffee professionals, we have a natural inclination to focus on the art and craft of coffee. We tend to gravitate towards unique and special coffees that are fully transparent back to the farm. We want to know the farmer’s name and story, the farm’s elevation, the soil type, and coffee’s genetics. Single-origin coffees support all of these desires.
Our customers, on the other hand, tend to buy blends. Every major coffee company is known and beloved by their customers for their iconic blend products, from Starbucks’ Pike’s Place to Stumptown’s Hairbender. Hence the classic coffee inside joke: You spend 75% of your time worrying about your single origins, but you get 75% of your money from your blends.
Most coffee companies offer a blend of some sort. Blends can be delicious, dynamic, cost-effective, and provide a repeatable and consistent flavor profile to meet your customer’s demands. Blending can also be an excellent way to showcase favorable aspects of specific origins, highlight seasonality, and, as we mentioned above, become your company’s flagship coffee offering.
At this point, you might ask yourself, “What role do blends play on my menu? What about single origins? What kind of blend should I create?” The answers lie within the art and craft of menu design. A well-crafted menu will be focused on your customers’ preferences while helping you manage your brand and your cash flow.
Here are a few things to consider when you are creating a blend for your customers:
Goal and Profile
The first step is to ask yourself what kind of blend you are looking to create and where it will fit into your menu or offerings list. Espresso blend? Balanced and easy drinking house drip cup that takes milk well? Summer Seasonal Blend? Once you’ve determined the profile you are hoping to create, the next step is to identify coffees that could potentially fit the bill and start building your blend.
One thing to note here, the roast level will have a significant impact on the coffee’s flavor profile. Lighter roasts will generally leave more of the acids and aromatic compounds intact that contribute to more fruity notes. The intensity and perception of many acids decrease with more developed roasting. More developed roasts will be more caramelized, and more of the sweet, chocolatey, and nutty flavors and aromas will be present.
Coffee Choices General Guide
Body, Mouthfeel, Backdrop:
Generally speaking, natural, pulp-natural, and wet-hulled processed coffees are suitable for this. They are often full-bodied and can add sweet fruits, nutty/cocoa character, sweet notes, and spice notes to a blend. Think natural Ethiopian coffees, natural and pulp-natural Brazilian coffees, wet-hulled Sumatran coffees, and washed Papua New Guinean and Mexican coffees.
Mid-Palate, Balance, Drinkability:
Generally speaking, many washed processed coffees from the Americas are great for this. They can add a variety of fruit intensities and character, nutty/cocoa character, sweetness, and contribute to the overall balance. Think washed coffees from Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica, to name a few.
High Notes, Aromatic Interest, Zing!:
A variety of processing methods, varieties, and origins can contribute to the aromatic interest and the fruity and floral character in a blend. Additionally, adding a slightly lighter roasted coffee can also provide the same aromatic interest. Generally speaking, coffees from Africa, like Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Colombian coffees can add this kind of pop.
Pre-roast or post-roast blending?
Once you’ve decided which coffees will make up your blend, the next question is whether you should blend the green coffee and roast them together, i.e., pre-roast blending, or roast the components separately and combine them afterward, i.e., post-roast blending.
Pre-roast blending is more convenient, but you are limited by a single roast profile, making it challenging to achieve the best out of each coffee in your blend.
Post-roast blending is a little more work and, depending on how you have designed your blend, can require more planning, but you have the opportunity to roast each component of the blend just the way you like. If you decide to go this route, an easy way to blend the roasted coffee is to place the desired percentages into an appropriately sized bucket and give it a good stir to incorporate the coffees. Once you feel satisfied the coffee is mixed well, bag the coffees as usual.
Whichever way you decide to go, there is no perfect answer, only preferences. You will still have to brew all of the coffees in the blend at once using one grind setting, water temperature, and brew method, so focus on what works best for you and your customers.
At Bellwether, we understand that making all of this happen AND ending up with an excellent result can be complicated, time-consuming, frustrating. Because of this, we offer blends, like The Bellwether Community Blend, in The Bellwether Marketplace!
The coffee team spends a lot of time selecting, roasting, cupping, and roast profiling (and doing that all over again) many times throughout the year to make sure you have a stable blend ready to roast and serve your customers. If you haven’t had a chance to try any of the Marketplace blends yet, get in contact with your Customer Success Manager, and they will get a sample out to you.
Describing and labeling your blend
When creating a description for your blend, make sure you are conscious of how long you intend to offer the blend to your customers. If your blend is a fleeting seasonal blend made up of three specific coffee, go ahead and be specific. If you intend to create a perennial flagship blend, where you may have to change out a component every so often, make sure you are either specific about which coffees comprise the blend or general. E.g., “This blend is comprised of Ethiopia Quantit, Brazil Oberon, and Colombia Magia del Campo,” vs. “This blend is comprised of East African and South American coffees.”
Whichever you decide, make sure you consider how frequently you may have to make changes, print new labels, and how these changes may affect your budget.
To learn more about labeling and packaging, check out the Roasted Coffee Packaging article.
Blends in The Marketplace
Creating the perfect blend is not always easy and can take time. Be patient and remember, coffee is seasonal, and there will be times where you think you finally have achieved the perfect, most delicious blend only to realize you have to change out one of the components next month. This is normal and expected.
If blending coffees, designing the profile, and managing blend inventory and seasonality is not for you, not to worry; Bellwether has your back. We will always have blends in The Bellwether Marketplace that you can use to build your brand and maintain a consistent flavor profile your customers can come to rely on and love.
Have fun exploring and enjoy the process!
Blending Equipment
You may not need to use any additional equipment if you are pre-roast blending and weighing your different coffee straight into your hopper. However, there are circumstances where whether you are planning on pre or post-roast blending, it can often be convenient to blend the coffee in a separate device to make sure the coffee is blended properly. Here is one blending device we suggest:
- Granger White Food Grade Mixer $830.18