THE ART OF CREATING A GREAT COFFEE BLEND!
This is pretty much where the rubber meets the road, in the coffee industry. Coffee blends make up the vast majority of successful products within this industry. Single Origins and Estate Coffees are wonderful, but, coffee blends are generally the mainstay of most consumers purchases. There are several reasons for that.
Today I want to explain and explore how you would go about finding the right coffee blend for you and, what goes into the process of roasting and blending coffee and the underlying reasons. I hope you find this enjoyable and entertaining. After all it really is the "Art" side of the coffee industry. It is also the down and dirty business side of the industry. Let's take a closer look at what goes into this process.
Most of you know that coffee is an agricultural product. With any product that is cultivated and grown, there are natural cycles that occur. Coffee is no different.
Coffee is grown in very specific areas of the world. It can only be successfully farmed between the Tropic of Cancer and The Tropic of Capricorn. The climates associated with these areas is obviously conducive to the growing of coffee trees. Also, the higher the elevation, the better the quality is in almost every case. So, coffee tends to be grown in mountainous regions and most of the best quality coffees are also grown in and around volcanic ash.#coffeefacts
Many people in the present day find a region they seem to prefer and seek out companies that offer this coffee for purchase. These coffees are called "varietals" and they are much like a Cabernet or a Pinot Noir. Many of your premium coffees are available in these singular forms. For instance A very widely known varietal is Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee. This coffee to be able to bear that name, has to be graded, grown at a specific altitude and must pass a stringent quality control process before it bears the name "Jamaican Blue Mountain". Kona coffee is another great example of a single bean, which is highly regarded and widely consumed by many a discerning coffee lover.
However, it is an agricultural product and it does have a very specific growing and harvesting schedule. So if you are say, drinking a cup of very high grade coffee from Peru, and it is October, you are drinking a coffee that is at the height of its flavor cycle. Every coffee has its peaks and valleys . Unlike wine, coffee unfortunately doesn't get better with age. It doesn't evolve in complexity and structure. So, if you want a consistently great cup of coffee day in and day out, the only real way to achieve this is to find a blend you really like and buy it! Why? Well a great deal of it, is what I have just explained. Coffee in various regions is harvested at different times of the year, depending on where in the world it is grown. A blend of coffee, has been formulated by experts to maximize the peak flavors of a variety of coffees and in the very best cases, never varies in taste throughout the year. This is an art, it is a very specific talent and a huge part of gaining success in the business.
Early on in the coffee roasting business, people realized that different types of coffee varies greatly throughout the year. As many coffee roasters understood that consistency is a key to success. Coffee to be the same without any distinguishing differences generally needs to be blended and, it needs to be relatively flexible in the actual formula used to blend coffee to achieve the correct flavor profile. This is no small feet. In fact, it takes a great amount of knowledge, creativity and care to be able to manufacture a coffee that tastes the exact same, every day out of the year! A varietal, such as Kona, Colombian Supremo, Jamaican Blue Mountain and so on, will vary in flavor characteristics depending specifically on the time of year and the growing region you are drinking this coffee from. It is a fact. Take the Peru I just mentioned for instance.
You wouldn't want to drink a straight Peruvian varietal in say, June. The reason being it was harvested and, processed almost a year ago. During that time, it loses some of its most appealing characteristics. Now someone who is skilled at blending coffee could substitute say a Peru in June, which means the price has gone down, and the company will benefit from a reduced blend cost, because the coffee has lost some of its specific characteristics. Substitute the Peru for a Brazilian 2/3 to cheapen the blend while maintaining the cup profile. This happens all the time in the industry. Some of the larger roasters are targeting a specific cost, so that they make their margin. The smaller houses generally do it so they can maintain the integrity of the cup you drink. Whatever the reason, coffee blends are the backbone of the business.
That is why many coffee blends have a formula, yet the formula is a loose form of achieving consistency. I have developed many blends of coffee over the years and 1 of the things that is a given in the industry is there is always a variance in the amount of acceptable percentages each bean is used at different times of the year. For example a basic "house blend" will generally have a specific roast shade each bean is roasted to achieve a specific flavor profile, and then within that blend spec, there are varying degrees you can use at your discretion. Now depending on what you are trying to achieve even that will vary. So for instance, a house blend could be a 3 bean blend. The 3 components could be Colombian, Central American beans and Brazilian Coffee, usually a grade such as Brazil 2/3's "fine cup". So for arguments sake the perfect blend might be 50% Colombian, 40% Guatemalan or Costa Rican "Strictly High Grown", and 10% Brazilian 2/3 "fine cup". This is the outline that is used to create the blend. Generally within the blend "spec", there are acceptable variances that are allowed so that it enables the blender to adjust the percentages by 10 or 15%. Sometimes it is 5%, but in order to be successful you must know your coffee. A talented "cupper" is worth their weight in gold to a coffee company. If they are really knowledgeable they can be responsible for a great deal of the profitability of a roaster. That's why it takes years of knowledge to really be effective.
Sure there are businesses out there that would argue I'm wrong. They could say that all you have to do is find a person who is great at knowing the coffee market and skilled in trading, buying futures, reading charts and vice versa. I say that is a bunch of canned bull! In order to really achieve a Quality blend of coffee, you need someone who is extremely skilled at every nuance a coffee has. But unfortunately, you could even argue that! I'm sure the folks over at say, Procter & Gamble would throw my resume in the trash. Why? Well, because I'm a coffee lover. I couldn't just blend coffee all day long trying to back into a blend cost number. But that's just me. I'm sure the men and women at P&G have solid people choosing their particular grades of coffee. I would rather count widgets all day than do what they do every day. But hey, to each their own, right?
So, back to coffee blends. Now you may have noticed that I also included Guatemalan and or Costa Rican as a component. The reason this is true is because it again gives the roaster some leeway to substitute a different country of origin to ensure that the blend remains consistent and meets the flavor profile and standards that you are trying to match. It is a fact that by allowing this variance, you are ensuring that the coffee blend will remain consistent and the consumer receives exactly the same cup of coffee they drank, say 3 or 4 months ago. Many times there are a number of beans that are acceptable depending on the flavor profile you are striving to match. If you stuck to the exact percentage and the exact beans, the coffee would not be all over the place when it came to taste. I would venture to guess even the most pedestrian coffee drinker would be able to tell that the coffee is different, if that were the case. This is not what a company is looking for when it creates blends. It is looking for consistency. Yes, even the "big guys" are looking for it to taste the same. Remember, I didn't say better, I said the same! Hello, McDonald's! It is a proven fact that consumers want familiar. They want the same exact thing they got from the same product the day before, or the month before. That is why these chains are so successful, they give you what you are expecting. Good, bad, mediocre, or whatever. Consistency always wins! I for one, would like to think that quality matters, but, really, I am in the minority. Oh, you don't agree? Just take a look at how much Maxwell House Original Blend is consumed in the U.S. as opposed to say, Peet's Major Dickason's blend. It isn't even close my friends. But that's a story for another blog post.
In its most pure sense. Coffee is blended for quality, consistency and a pleasing flavor profile. However there are other reasons to create blends too. One might be price. A larger coffee roaster might actually not use a spec based on types of coffee for flavor, they may be blending it to hit a certain price point. While this doesn't go a long way in blending coffee for superior flavor, it might be a coffee that a large roaster needs to make a certain margin on, and is priced low on the retail shelves. This is an entirely different process but, the way it is done is in theory the same. The only difference is a business might be using a blend spec that ensures the finished product won't exceed a certain finished cost! Think Folger's for instance. They use a combination of arabica and robusta beans. Now robusta beans are generally frowned upon and deemed unacceptable in the "gourmet" circles. The coffee, while possessing more caffeine is generally grown at much lower levels and can have a bitter or even better, a non-descript flavor. It is also traded on a different commodity market, London, and is always much lower in price than pretty much any level of arabica coffee. There are some cases where you might come across some low grade arabica coffee that has been sitting in a warehouse in New Orleans for 2-3 years that might be cheaper, but, generally speaking robusta is significantly cheaper to buy. For instance, a Colombian UGQ(usual good quality) European prep coffee may be trading today on the commodity market at +.45c over the New York commodity market price of say, $1.25 per pound. That means the coffee costs $ 1.70 per pound to purchase. This price is generally 250 bags of beans, and then you have to move it which adds another , let's just say, 4-6 cents per pound onto the cost. The robusta beans, say from Vietnam are traded on the London market and the price might be $1.00 per pound, based on the robusta trading price. Now it costs just as much to ship robusta, so you are getting it for $1.05 or so. This makes a significant difference in the total blended cost. Every roaster then takes that and uses that price as their landed cost. Then when coffee is roasted it shrinks. The average coffee shrinks approximately 15%. So you put 500 pounds into the roaster, you get 425 pounds of coffee out of the roaster. So there are various reasons why coffee is blended in the industry. #coffee#coffeeblends
I am generally from the school of creating quality blends, although I have developed specs purely based on price point also. Believe me, it was a complete business decision. It had nothing to do with coffee and, everything to do with profits! The fact that it is based on price means that the spec is very loosely written. This gives the coffee expert the ability to substitute a number of different beans to match the price point. Obviously not the ideal way to manufacture coffee but, you'd be surprised how many people just go for the "cheapest" coffee on the shelf! It is a business after all, and that business is to make money. I know that business from my experience and it has nothing to do with Art! The trick is to deliver a great quality blend, at a fair price and hopefully, consumers will agree with you. That is where I'm coming from, and actually, where I'm headed!#coffeeroasting
Chances are, if you are a coffee fan. The safest way to ensure your daily coffee is consistent is to do some research. Find a few blends that are interesting to you, and perform your own taste test to find a coffee that meets your expectations. Do you like mild coffee? Do you prefer a dark roasted blend? Do you like coffee that has a chocolate flavor or a crisp citrus like after taste? I could list my top 5 coffee blends in a second, but this isn't about that. It is about how to blend coffee and help you appreciate what goes into every blend of coffee you drink on a daily basis. A quality blend will deliver that same flavor throughout the year and, you will never taste any variances in the cup of coffee you drink.
Blends have been around for a long time and they were created so that consistency is a given. Remember my "the same is good " ranting from above? Well this is why. You will very rarely get a blend that varies so, the average coffee drinker will be satisfied with the coffee they buy on a weekly basis. Yes that means Maxwell House and Folger's too, begrudgingly.
In my experience coffee that is blended also doesn't have to be the top of the line beans from a certain growing region. Most companies tend to choose coffees that they are very familiar with and a supply chain that is consistent. They also don't have to be a gourmet level bean blend! That is the magic of blending. You can create something that's whole is far greater than its pieces. You can take 4 middle of the road coffees, and blend them to an exacting specification and get a delicious cup of coffee. That is the "art". It is also very difficult to achieve and more importantly, maintain. For instance take a country like Costa Rica. Their farming techniques and quality of living is above the majority of countries that grow coffee. However their bean grades vary greatly just like many coffee growing countries. You have the choice of say, 5 or 6 grades of an arabica Costa Rican bean. Costa Rica is a good model because of their variety in quality levels. You will have the gourmet/plantation style coffee that possess spectacular coffees, for example a beautiful Costa Rican "Tarrazu". This coffee falls into the top 10-15% of the quality the country grows. The beans are generally grown at very high elevations, say 4000 feet above sea level or more, and the flavor and bean size are extremely even and consistent. Then you have "Strictly High Grown" which is a level of bean that delivers excellent quality but are more affordable than the single estate grown coffee. It also has simply "high grown" or "hard bean" which is most often the quality you might encounter in a decent, or above average retail level blend. Then you have your run of the mill variety which is costa rican arabica, which could be grown at various levels, and the bean size could vary greatly. They could also be from several different farms, as long as they meet the grading standards that are required. A true purist would say that this is already a blend! I wouldn't disagree with that.
That doesn't mean that the beans aren't flavorful and extremely effective in a blend though. Especially if you are selling the coffee ground. By selling your blends ground you are alleviating a few big problems. You are not showing the bean size, there is no way of measuring the defects, which is part of the grading process especially with gourmet level coffee. So there is another reason blends work so well. A knowledgeable coffee expert can save thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars by choosing coffees that might look inferior to the human eye. Yet when blended and roasted correctly will deliver a very pleasing, consistent cup of coffee for the consumer. This type of knowledge and skill can be the difference between a business being successful or being extremely successful. Of course, coffee is a very speculative item. Many times you will find just as many people who dislike a blend as you will that love it. The magic happens when you find someone that can create a coffee for the masses. One that generally everyone finds pleasing and they are willing to pay the price you put on it! I could state some facts about blends that already do that, but again, this is about the art of blending coffee, not the "art of public approval"!
Take Dunkin Donuts for instance. In my opinion their coffee is very "middle of the road" coffee. They have 4 beans in their blend, which gives them plenty of wiggle room to not only build a consistent flavor profile throughout the year, but also allows them to keep the cost down, which in that business is what is really important. Years ago their coffee blend consisted of 2 beans. It was in my opinion a whole lot better than what it is now. They used a Colombian UGQ and a coffee from Brazil, which I mentioned earlier, a 2/3 "fine cup" bean. Now Brazilian 2/3's has been a staple of the blending process from the beginning of time. There are a bunch of reasons but, 2 stand out. The 2/3 is a very neutral flavored bean. In effect it is what most blenders and R & D people in the industry refer to as a very good coffee to round out a blend. Meaning it does not have 1 over riding characteristic like overly acidic, or a singular flavor, as you hear some people refer to certain beans as having chocolate flavor notes, or in the case of Kenya AA beans, an extremely dominant "wine like" after taste. It is in every way neutral which makes it a great bean to blend with. The reason being? If you include this in a blend it will not over power or alter the flavor profile in any significant way. This makes it the ultimate "blending" bean! It is also generally one of the cheapest arabica beans on the commodity market historically and another really significant fact is, There is more of it than any other bean in the world! So access will never be a problem and the price is right. Also it is an arabica so in the mind of the coffee drinker, the blend hasn't been compromised by throwing in some lowly robusta beans. Oh by the way. Not to burst anyone's bubble but the majority of Espresso, has Robusta beans in it, sometimes almost the entire blend is Robusta! So think about that when you are purchasing your next Espresso Blend for $14.99 for a 10 oz bag. (A little side note!!)
There is much more I could include here, but I hope you get the general idea.
I have been creating blends of coffee and sourcing beans from all over the world for over 25 years. It is a fascinating business and one I truly love. I had taken a five year hiatus to consult beginning in 2012. It was certainly the right decision at the time. Now, I am looking to pour all my efforts and experience back into the business I have spent over half my life learning and doing.#blogsaboutcoffee
I believe I have some ideas for the future that will hopefully make this great business even better. Within the next 5 years I envision a coffee market that is very different from the one we have known for many, many years. I hope you will support me in my decision, and I will certainly continue to populate this blog with the newest things I am working on. I will try and provide solid information for all that wish to learn more about this wonderful business. Please sign up to my list, because I am going to switch this blog over to Wordpress very soon, and I would like to notify you of any changes when that does happen. If you have been following this blog for awhile, I think you know that I am not someone you are going to get bombarded with emails and crazy offers etc... So please add your contact information to this blog. You will find the sign up in the right column and I'll leave a better one at the end of this blog!! I would greatly appreciate it if you would participate.
Also, I really would welcome any and all comments. I wish to also ask you that if there is a topic I haven't covered, just ask, I will do my best to write about it. I would really like this blog to become a little more interactive and the only way I can do that is if, you the reader, let me know what you want to learn about. There is virtually no topic coffee related, I couldn't lend my experience and knowledge to. So really, if you want to learn about it, just ask.#coffeeblogs#topblogsaboutcoffee
Finally, I started this blog from ground zero! Not 1 email, not 1 name, not even any of my contacts. I did this purposely to see what would happen. I am very proud to tell you that I just passed over 26,000 views on this blog! So I want to sincerely thank everyone that has followed this blog and I hope you will tell your friends and share some of the content that you find interesting. Thank you again, and I hope you will continue to follow and participate going forward!
Joe Leary.#coffeenews
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