What are blended coffee beans? Italian blend coffee bean formula Italian espresso bean growing time

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Recently, there are regular customers who often come to Qianjie store to buy coffee beans, and the new guests in Qianjie look very puzzled. I don't know why Qianjie baristas mix several kinds of beans and sell them together. In fact, this is blended coffee beans, also known as mixed coffee. Then come to the front street of this article to find out what coffee beans are.

What is mixed coffee?

Coffee fans all know that individual coffee is coffee beans from a single producing area, such as Ethiopia's Yejasuefei in the front street or Mantenin in Indonesia. These are all single coffee beans, and the flavor also has the local flavor of the producing area. The blended coffee is a mixture of individual coffee beans from different producing areas, but what is emphasized here in the front street is that the mixed spelling is not random. Instead, it is necessary to strictly require the proportion of blending and the coordination of flavor in order to make coffee with a good flavor.

Take Esseye plus Xuefei and Indonesia Mantenin to spell, the flavor of the two coffee beans are diametrically opposite, one is fresh lemon and citrus flavor, the other is herbal earthy flavor, suppose it is mixed at 1:1, the front street dare not think how dark that flavor should be, so spelling beans are exquisite, not random collocation.

And Qianjie believes that blending coffee beans is an art. First of all, coffee blenders must understand the different characteristics of coffee flavors in different producing areas, so that they can mix attractive aromas and make coffee more delicious. This not only requires a lot of coffee experience and inspiration, but also through accurate proportioning calculation, so it is not too much to say that the process of blending coffee beans is an art.

Well, since it is a blending, it naturally refers to the blending of more than two kinds of raw beans, but a special example is that it can also match the same kind of coffee beans with different roasting degrees, or even the new crop and aged coffee or old crop of the same kind of coffee beans, so the type referred to in the blending is no longer a coffee variety in a narrow sense, but extends to the flavor of coffee in a broad sense. Generally use 2 to 6 kinds of coffee beans when blending, too many kinds will not be able to show the unique flavor of coffee.

Why mix coffee?

Then there must be coffee fans who will ask Qianjie that the flavor of a single cup of coffee is good enough, so why mix coffee beans? In fact, the origin of blended coffee comes from Italy. Italian coffee is commonly used in cafes, whether lattes, mochas or cappuccinos. This is because blended beans can make coffee that is not mellow enough to become more mellow, so there is a natural market when there is demand, and the first Italian blended coffee appeared because Italian espresso, which was rich and bitter, was popular at that time. On the other hand, there is a flavor bias of single-producing coffee, that is, advantages and disadvantages coexist. In addition, the price of high-quality single coffee beans is expensive, and the price of blended coffee is higher, and the price is lower than that of single coffee, but the flavor can also be unique, so at that time, many Italians chose blended coffee rather than individual coffee. blended coffee has developed and become popular today.

The main purpose of blending coffee is to maintain a stable flavor and balanced taste, because coffee fruit is always a crop, and the flavor of coffee fruit is unstable every year because of climatic and environmental problems, which may be sweeter this year and not so sweet next year. Mixing several kinds of coffee beans together can solve this problem, or at least keep the flavor of coffee tasted every year consistent.

There must also be coffee fans wondering why espresso can't be made with individual coffee beans, because one of the features of the Italian coffee machine is that it magnifies the most prominent coffee flavor of coffee beans. For example, the main flavor of Yega Xuefei in Ethiopia is citrus citric acid, so Italian coffee will enlarge its acidity, while Indonesian Mantini's main flavor is bitter herbal soil. The espresso machine will magnify the bitter flavor, so Qianjie coffee will not use a single variety of coffee beans to make Italian coffee, otherwise the coffee produced is very uneven and affects the taste, which is why Italian coffee is made with coffee beans.

How to mix coffee beans

Blended coffee is divided into raw spelling and cooked spelling, raw spelling is to mix the coffee beans before baking, cooked spelling is first roasted in the mixture. Qianjie believes that the advantage of Shengpin is that it can use the same baking degree to make the coffee flavor stable and uniform, and the same baking degree can also greatly reduce the difficulty of quality control and improve efficiency, but it is not perfect. Shengpai has great limitations, so it is generally recommended to use several beans with similar coffee bean density, otherwise the flavor will not be as good as that of the original producing area. For example, beans that have always been suitable for light baking have to be baked with the same light baked beans to achieve double good results, while a shallow baked bean and a deep baked bean baked together is not a match, it will lead to bad flavor.

On the other hand, Qianjie believes that the advantage of cooked spelling is that it can be baked according to the best baking degree of each bean to maximize the characteristics of each bean. But the disadvantage of cooked spelling is that daily quality control and management will be more difficult, baking dates are inconsistent, you need to pay more attention to more bean cultivation period, imagine using 4-5 coffee beans to do cooked spelling, this product needs to focus on 4-5 baking dates. Therefore, cooked spelling also has a variety of advantages and disadvantages, but the purpose is the same, all in order to make the coffee flavor more delicious.

Of course, there are also two ways of blending coffee. One is the blending of coffee beans from different producing areas. For example, the warm sun blend of Qianjie Coffee is to mix Honduras's Shirley with Ethiopia's Yega Sheffield, while Shirley provides most of the flavor. Yega Sheffield provides aroma and acidity.

Another way of blending is the blending of different coffee varieties. For example, Qianjie Butterfly is famous for mixing about 70% of the rose summer varieties, and the former street coffee Costa Rica Mira Pearl Manor is famous for mixing half of the rose summer varieties, half of the SL28, ET47, and Maico. However, Qianjie believes that coffee beans made from a mixture of different varieties are called "blending" only to highlight one of the varieties, not in the traditional sense. Interestingly, if we mix different varieties of coffee beans, then most of our common coffee beans will be blended. For example, Kenya often mixes SL28 and SL34.

Four kinds of coffee beans of Qianjie coffee

As Qianjie Wen said, blending coffee beans is an art, which can not be spelled casually, but depends on the repeated attempts of coffee mixers to make a cup of coffee with good flavor. therefore, the Qianjie baker has also gone through continuous repeated matching tests to produce the choice of sunflower sunflower matching, boutique matching, commercial matching and basic matching currently available in Qianjie stores. The difference between these combinations is to make a balanced and high-quality flavor for different prices. Let's introduce these four kinds of mixed coffee in detail in the front street.

Qianjie coffee sunflower sunflower mix

This matching Qianjie is made of Yega Sheffield Sun Red Cherry and Honduran Shirley. Qianjie's design concept for this matching bean is that both Italian style and hand flushing can be used. The flavor emitted when it is used to make espresso has obvious fermented wine aroma, citrus and berry acidity emerge immediately when tasting, with whisky aroma and dark chocolate finish.

When brewing this sunny coffee by hand, the flavor is not as rich as when making espresso, it has fermented wine and a little citrus aroma, and only obvious wine and dark chocolate in the mouth at high temperature. when the temperature drops, it will slightly reflect the acidity of citrus and berries, the whole is clean and fresh, without the taste of vanilla cream.

Qianjie coffee boutique mix

This blend is made in front of Brazil and Colombia, with a hint of baked grass, a slightly bitter fragrance, and a pleasant finish. This is because the coffee beans in the Colombian Cymbidium area have a pleasant sour taste, mellow smell, moderate acidity, rich sweetness and endurance.

It is intriguing that the coffee beans in the Hilado region of Brazil have a comfortable sweet and bitter taste, and the entrance is extremely smooth. So it's a wonderful match.

Commercial blending of coffee in Qianjie

This mix uses Brazilian and Colombian coffee beans and 10% robusta coffee beans in front of the mix. The taste is classic. Qianjie believes that this blend has rich grease and taste and caramel sweetness, with nutty and cocoa flavors, dark chocolate flavor, sweet and sour balance, a little bitterness and a long finish. This commercial blend, like the Qianjie boutique coffee mix, uses Colombian and Brazilian coffee beans, except that Robusta provides rich oil, making the coffee taste more mellow.

Qianjie Coffee basic blending

The front street is made up of Brazil and Yunnan. Qianjie thinks it tastes sweet with soft fruit acid and caramel, as well as nutty and dark chocolate, smooth and sticky, but light. This is because the natural conditions of Yunnan are very similar to those of Colombia, with high altitude, great temperature difference between day and night, mellow flavor, moderate sour taste, rich and mellow taste, uniform particles, more oil, and fruity flavor, and its quality and taste is similar to Colombian coffee. But it is still slightly lighter than that in Colombia, while the coffee beans in Brazil's Hilado region have a comfortable sweet and bitter taste and are extremely smooth in entrance. Therefore, the mixed flavor of these two kinds of coffee beans is also good, and this basic combination of coffee beans has a very high performance-to-price ratio, which is suitable for Italian beginners and small coffee shops.

Hand-made use of blended coffee

Blended coffee is not only for espresso, it can also be used by hand, but the flavor produced by brewing is always a little different from that made by Italian coffee machine. but Qianjie thinks that the flavor of different hands is also very special, so it is OK to choose hand brewing or Italian coffee machine, just make it as you like.

The next step in Qianjie is to share the data with coffee fans who want to make their own hands.

Qianjie hand brewing coffee parameters: V60 filter cup, powder content 15g, water temperature 90 ℃, powder / water ratio 1:15, grinding degree (20 standard sieve pass rate 80%, coarser than Italian coffee)

Flushing and cooking technique, the front street using staged extraction, steaming with 30g water for 30 seconds, small flow around the circle injection to 125g for stages, when the water level is about to expose the powder bed, continue to inject water to 225g to stop water injection, and so the water level drop is about to expose the powder bed to remove the filter cup, (steaming starts timing) the extraction time is 2 minutes 39th 00 ".

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