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ence – and it can be – but for a lot of roasters it’s a com- The Real Dark Art of Blending
mercial necessity rather than a luxury. It’s often the case
that a roaster’s blend will include the waste or “buffer” I can see why a lot of roasters and baristas don’t like
inventory of the business. As the most popular product the blends. Quite often they’re a disappointing representation
blend can be a great way to sell coffee that are getting long of the coffees within. You take a chocolaty Brazilian and
in the tooth or under-performing on their own. Although a juicy Kenyan, put them together and you get a powdery,
it may not always hurt the quality of the Blend (it might be dry, sour blend. But why? Shouldn’t you get fruity
a great coffee that just isn’t selling well!) it does damage chocolate?! No. Not unless you understand solubility and
the integrity and original intent of the business to sell one. how it plays a part in blending. If you have ever tasted
So that’s why roasters blend from a rather commercial the components of a blend separately, and then together
standpoint. But why do some roasters choose blending while as a blend, you may have noticed that the blend tastes
others stay entirely away? nothing like the best of its components. In fact, it tastes
like the worst of them. This is because the coffees have
Pro Blending differing solubilities. Please, allow me to explain.Back in
my post on Talking about Roasts I mentioned that a de-
Blending is often touted as a way to make a product veloped roast makes a coffee more soluble. In other
greater than the sum of its parts. From this standpoint, words, it allows water to permeate its structure and dis-
blending allows coffee to hide their faults and show their solve its flavour. Unfortunately, solubility isn’t a yes/no
strengths. I believe this is often just wishful thinking. If you situation. There are many shades of solubility, and every
blend one thin, acidic coffee, and one rich and sweet coffee, coffee is a little different.
you don’t magically get a juicy rounded cup. You get a cof- Think of an aeropress with 6g of a very soluble coffee
fee that’s a bit acidic, a bit sweet and has a mouthfeel (A) and 6g of another coffee that’s less soluble (B). From
somewhere between thin and rich. Blending doesn’t just the moment you add water, those two coffees will extract
hide the negatives and bring out the positives, it puts ev- at different rates. Let’s stop the brew at different points and
erything together and dilutes those qualities according to check in to see what those coffees will taste like.
the ratio. • 2:00 (A)will be powering towards a full extraction, begin-
Some go so far as to say that single origin/estate/ ning to produce some nice sweetness and roundness. (B)
microlot coffee will never taste good on its own and must will be struggling to keep up, and is still very under-extract-
be blended to taste great (with the aggressive improvements ed. To combat that sourness you let the brew go on.
towards coffee quality in recent years this opinion is cer- • 3:00 (A) is starting to taste a bit over extracted. B is only
tainly less popular). I definitely don’t agree with this, but I beginning to taste good, and needs more time.
will happily admit that blends can – occasionally – taste
significantly better than their components. This is rare, and
involves a great deal of skill, but it’s far from impossible.

Anti Blending

Others have gone as far as to stop blending alto-
gether; notably Tim Wendelboe in Oslo and The
Barn in Berlin. I believe the prevailing argument
here is that the coffees being bought are incred-
ibly complex, unique and special, so blending
them would only serve to diminish their
qualities. I think this is a noble and just cause
– their coffees are indeed special – but I’m not
convinced that this is the best course of action
for the industry at large.I don’t believe the major-
ity of coffee-drinking customers are quite ready to
appreciate and understand why roasters have sud-
denly dropped blends from their offering. Blends still
hold a special place in customer’s hearts; they’re the
flag-bearer for the business; the gateway to the rest of your
offering. Don’t get me wrong: I’m definitely a strong advo-
cate for exposing customers to unique and special coffees.
I’m just wary of how we go about that as an industry.

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