Diedrich IR-7 coffee roaster at Old Soul Co in 2006, used to roast the original Whiskey Dreams Moka Java Blend. Courtesy of Andri Tambunan.

The idea of the coffee blend is a long and winding road. Blends give roasters an opportunity to create a coffee that evokes specific sensory properties, and blends are often designed to give consumers a consistent experience over time (much like a Champagne house approaches the non-vintage brut). But before consumers began insisting upon knowing the origins of what’s in their cup, it wasn’t all that common for roasters to label blend components on the bag, or even necessarily indicate that a coffee is a blend.

In this month’s report, we consider the “house blend,” a full 25 years after Kenneth Davids, co-founder of Coffee Review, wrote this publication’s first-ever report, which happened to be on this very topic. Embedded in that first report is a brief history of Coffee Review’s origin story, including an argument for rating coffees on a 100-point scale and a decoding of the five sensory categories we still use as a basis for our ratings.

What Is Different, And What Has Stayed the Same?

The fact that we no longer pick up the phone to order coffee by mail notwithstanding, one major change is in the vast number of coffees available to consumers. Ken reviewed 12 coffees for this report in 1997, and they were all from large roasters like Starbucks, Peet’s, Green Mountain and Gevalia (with the exception of Mendocino, California’s Thanksgiving Coffee, which was smallish, at the time). In 2022, there are countless roasters in cities across the U.S., large and small, almost all of which have at least one house blend. Add to that our reviews of coffees from international roasters, particularly Taiwan, and the number of possibilities is staggering.

What remains the same is our approach to blind cupping. We still cup coffees without knowing their identities, and we still use our five-category 100-point scale to evaluate both traditional and innovative/experimental coffee types.

House Blends as Creative License

In 2022, the story of coffee and its complex supply chain is front and center, as it should be for those of us who love it, and blends often receive as much consideration as special single-origin coffees. They give roasters a chance to craft new stories based not only around origins and processing methods but also around roasters’ own narratives of time and place. In the best examples, blending has become a downright Proustian affair.

The “house blend” has historically connoted value, familiarity and consistency. But times are changing, and we now see other approaches, too, including the “omni” or “all-purpose” blend that works as well in espresso and cold-brew format as it does in batch-brew and pourover, and special seasonal blends that change with each new crop and are not designed to remain consistent over time. And even more traditional blends are typically presented with greater detail: why these green coffee components, why these processing methods, how these coffees play well together — and perhaps more importantly, what ideas and feelings a specific blend is designed to evoke, often expressed in conceptual names. (It seems that the old “breakfast blend” isn’t as enticing as it once was.)

In the 1997 House Blends report, the 12 coffees reviewed scored between 68 and 90. Only one sample revealed the origins of the coffees inside the bag, and the disclosure was very general: “Indonesia, Central and South America.” These blends were most dramatically differentiated by roast level, which ranged from quite light to very dark.

But of the nearly 80 samples we cupped for this report, about 90% are “special” in some way, even if designed to be affordable and familiar. All reveal the blend components, either on the bag or on the roaster’s website, or both. The 10 blends we review here scored between 92 and 94 and represent a range of sensory possibility, from the nostalgic to the novel.

Classic, Familiar Blends

Even though most of the coffees we see coming from Taiwan roasters are light-roasted microlots, Kakalove Café is going for a darker-roasted homage to Mayan culture with its Obsidian Mirror Blend (93), which owner Caesar Tu says is named for the stone that was important to Mayans for both practical and ritual purposes, while also implying that one should drink this coffee black. A blend of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras coffees, it is deep and rich, with chocolate notes suggesting fudge, and a whisper of comfortingly familiar roastiness.

Charlotte Coffee Company’s 704 Blend (93), named for the North Carolina city’s area code, is a blend of two pedigreed washed coffees, Tsekaka Papua New Guinea and Guatemala Finca San Gerardo, which result in a super-sweet, caramelly cup with floral underpinnings and a rich nuttiness.

Bag of Mo’ Better Brews’ Bleek & Indigo Blend. Courtesy of Mo’ Better Brews.

Houston’s Three Keys Coffee just released the Mo’ Better Brews Bleek & Indigo Blend (92), designed for a local vegan breakfast, coffee and vinyl shop. Comprised of a washed Colombia and a natural-processed Ethiopia, it’s both deeply chocolaty and tartly fruit-toned. Co-owner Kenzel Fallen says the name is a nod to Spike Lee’s 1990 film Mo’ Better Blues about a jazz trumpeter, an association that resonates well with both the shop and its vinyl theme and Three Keys’ own music referencing, which appears in all of the brand’s coffees.

Adam Monaghan, Succulent Coffee Roasters’ co-founder, says its New Wave Blend (93) is designed not only to be drunk every day, but all day. Designed as a batch brew to fuel both work and play, it’s a fruit-forward counterpoint to washed Central America-heavy blends, more of a new-classic approach, if you will. A washed Colombia (imported by Royal) provides the chocolaty base, while a natural Ethiopia (imported by Catalyst) gives it foreground and lift.

Omni Blends

A trend we noticed most prominently in this report cupping is the emergence of the “omni” or “all-purpose” blend. Maybe the pandemic has made us all want to simplify our lives, or maybe the trend toward lighter-roasted espresso is finally intersecting with the trend toward slightly darker drip preferences, landing in a medium-roast wheelhouse that works quite well across a range of formats.

Bag of Memory Lane Blend by Nostalgia Coffee Roasters, shown with a 92-point Coffee Review medallion from 2021. Courtesy of Nostalgia Coffee Roasters.

San Diego-based Nostalgia Coffee’s Memory Lane Blend (93) might have fallen into the classic category if not for its wide range of applications. Nostalgia founder Taylor Fields, who launched the brand as a mobile shop as the pandemic began to take hold, says she needed her first coffee release to do a whole lot: “We wanted a true house blend that would do it all and, more importantly, be a porch pounder and enjoyed by all types of coffee drinkers from newbies to connoisseurs.” A Brazil natural contributes body, a Guatemala, nutty sweetness, and a Sumatra, earthy depth.

Label of Battlecreek Coffee Roasters’ House Blend. Courtesy of Battlecreek Coffee Roasters.

Battlecreek Coffee’s House Blend (92) carries a straightforward name to indicate that it’s a staple, but just above that name, the two carefully selected single-origin coffees that comprise it are listed: a natural Ethiopia Shakiso and a washed Guatemala Huehuetenango, both of which Battlecreek sells as standalone coffees. Director of Coffee Josh de Jong says this coffee was created for a partner coffee shop that serves espresso drinks, cold brew in summer, pourovers, and batch brew, so they needed something nimble and crowd-pleasing. Gently bright, spice-toned and citrusy, this blend is both versatile and accessible.

Valkyrie (92) — yes, of Norse mythology — is Small Eyes Café’s everyday coffee, designed to be affordable and approachable. Honduras, Brazil and Ethiopia coffees combine for a cocoa-toned, floral cup. It’s not clear how the name intersects with the coffee, but it sure is catchy for those mainly in pursuit of caffeine.  Owner/roaster Tom Chuang says he developed it for use as espresso, but it works well as a filter coffee, too.

Creative Originals

And then we have coffees that refuse to be tamed by convention. First among them is Old Soul’s Whiskey Dreams (94), named not for its barrel-aging (no, it’s not one of those) but for how the sweet ferment of the Ethiopia natural-processed component evokes whiskey. The other component, co-owner Jason Griest explains, is a Sumatra Adsenia Triple Pick imported by Royal Coffee, which, combined with the fruity Ethiopia Dur Feres G3 from Catalyst Trade, results in a fourth-wave mocha java (here spelled “moka java), the classic blend formula that traditionally combines a wet-hulled Indonesia coffee with a natural-processed Yemen. In addition to calling out his longtime importer-partners, Griest acknowledges his former roaster, Ryan Harden, and his current roaster, Brad Terry, for collaborating with him on the blend. He points out that “Components matter, importers and exporters matter, and roasters matter,” seconding the focus on traceability widely embraced in specialty coffee today.

Black Level Blend by St1 Cafe/Work Room in Tainan City, Taiwan.  Courtesy of St1 Cafe.

New Tainan City, Taiwan roaster St1 Cafe, which operates a coffee shop and workspace, offers the Black Level Blend (94) comprised of coffees from Kenya and Colombia. Deep-toned and sweetly savory, it exhibits notes of cocoa nib, ripe tomato, lemon verbena, star jasmine, and cedar. Roaster Carrie Chang says the concept started with a two-Kenya blend used in a canned espresso martini, modified here to include a washed Colombia to tone down the Kenyas and contribute classic chocolate notes.

Another roaster that is flipping the script is Taiwan-based Fumi Coffee, whose First Love Blend (92) is what we at Coffee Review call a caveat coffee, meaning that not everyone will love it, but if you do, you really do. The most experimental coffee among the 10 we review here, it combines an Ethiopia natural-processed Uraga and a double-washed Kenya with a Colombia fermented in a specially prepared culture of yeasts, sugars and passionfruit. The result is an umami-fruit bomb. Roaster/owner Yu Chih Hao says he was going for a coffee not easily forgotten, and this intense cup fits that bill.

No matter how you brew, or what style of coffee you prefer, it’s high time to reconsider blends. The thoughtfulness and creativity going into house blends these days — in sourcing, combining, roasting, brewing, and naming — is playful, serious, historically relevant, precise, evocative — and, of course, delicious.

We hope you enjoy this full-circle trail from Coffee Review’s first report, published 25 years ago, to this account of the diverse, exciting house blends available today.

The post Reflections on the Art of Coffee Blending: Daily Drinkers With Personality appeared first on Coffee Review.

Because of the number of coffees we received, we had to break the report into two parts: U.S. roasters in June and roasters from Taiwan in this month’s report. In the June report on classic espresso blends from U.S. roasters, two themes emerged as definitions of classic: Some roasters viewed the call as an opportunity to submit traditional Italian-style espresso blends that are accessible, chocolate-leaning and relatively uncomplicated, while others offered more “third wave” blend expressions tending toward brightness and complex intensity.

Last month, as now, we tested all coffees blind without regard for our own pre-conceptions of classic, evaluating each espresso by way of Coffee Review’s tasting system based on five sensory categories — aroma, mouthfeel, flavor, aftertaste, and performance in milk — and only later sorted out why a roaster submitted a given sample as an example of a “classic” espresso blend.

Our co-taster for the coffees from Taiwan roasters was Israel (Izzy) Fraire, director of operations at Bay Area CoRoasters (CoRo), a groundbreaking space for new specialty roasters that offers a collaborative roasting facility with affordable access to high-end equipment, as well as education and community-building. Together, Izzy and I tested the 15 espressos that had made it through our initial screening of the 46 that we received from roasters in Taiwan. Our barista was Coffee Review’s Jason Sarley, who pulled shots roughly within these parameters: 19 grams in, 38 grams out, over 27-28 seconds.

The Five Top-Scoring Espresso Blends

Of the 15 finalists we tested, the five we review here scored between 92 and 93; the remaining 10 scored between 85 and 89. Because each of these espresso blends approaches the notion of “classic” in an entirely different way, it’s really not possible to group them around coherent themes, so we’ll approach each as a unique expression. After all, that’s what blending is about — putting your own stamp as a roaster on a composition of carefully selected coffees.

The Closest We Got to Traditional Italian-Style “Classic”

Kakalove Café’s Caesar Tu is a coffee-industry veteran, having founded his own highly regarded roastery in 2013. While Tu works across a variety of eclectic coffee styles, he interpreted the call for classic espressos as referring to traditional Italian-style blends, so he submitted a moderately darker-roasted blend of washed coffees from Colombia, Guatemala and Ethiopia, which scored 93. Tu says that, for him, “Classic espresso means a coffee that doesn’t have a leading role; it’s just a base for cappuccino and latte. It should have an old soul, link relationships, and be comfortable to drink with friends or family, casually, without thinking too much about it.” His Black Meow Blend — bittersweet, chocolaty, and delicately roast-toned — is, playfully, named after his cat who hangs around the roastery. For Tu, this coffee is a good choice for people who want something inexpensive and perhaps an espresso to enjoy with sugar or brandy.

Ethiopia Blue Donkey coffee, a component in Kakalove Cafe’s Black Meow Blend. Photo courtesy of Caesar Tu.

A Classic By Any Other Name Would Be … New Wave

The remaining four coffees we review here are unique blends — not “classic” in any traditional sense, but certainly working toward coffee styles that these talented roasters hope will have lasting presence in the 21st century.

L2 LOVE Espresso Blend by DoDo Kaffa. Photo courtesy of Amanda Liao.

Taipei roaster Amanda Liao of DoDo Kaffa blended two coffees from different growing regions in Kenya (Nyeri and Kiambu) for her sweetly savory, spice-toned L2 Love Espresso Blend (93). This is a coffee that would be equally lovely prepared for brewed applications, and certainly a “classic” in regard to its celebrated origin and style (old-school Kenya).

Roasting at Dory Coffee Roasters in Taipei, Taiwan. Photo courtesy of Dory Coffee Roasters.

Dory Coffee Roasters’ Guatemala-Ethiopia Espresso Blend (93) combines both washed and natural-process Ethiopia coffees and a washed Guatemala to achieve a bright, floral, and sweetly herb-toned espresso shot, notes that persist nicely into the milk.

The roasting room at Small Eyes Cafe in Yilan, Taiwan. Photo courtesy of Sheng Hsu Chuang.

Sheng Hsu Chuang, also known as Tom Chuang, sent us what is perhaps the most avant-garde of the 46 coffees we tested, starting with the blend’s name: Sun Sun Sun Sun Sun Sun Sun Sun Sun. That’s not a typo; the repetition represents the nine different coffees (from Ethiopia, Panama, Guatemala and Honduras, all natural-processed) that went into this 93-rated blend. It is a fruit-bomb extraordinaire, more appealing in the straight shot than in milk with its deep, dessert-like fruit, candy, and rich floral notes.

Shih Hong Lin roasting at De Clieu Coffee Roasters. Photo courtesy of De Clieu Coffee Roasters.

De Clieu Coffee’s Karibu Espresso Blend (92) combines three natural-processed Ethiopia coffees with a washed Panama for an interesting sensory juxtaposition of sweet-tart fruit and spicy aromatic wood notes, a study in (integrated) contrasts.

A Six-Degrees-of-Separation Twist

Two of the roasters whose coffees we feature here, Jason Yu of Dory Coffee Roasters and Chi Hong Lin of De Clieu Coffee, happen to be students of roaster Kelly Wang of Greenstone Coffee, someone whose coffees we’ve reviewed for several years. We learned about these relationships by coincidence when corresponding with Wang after both Yu and Lin had reported to her the success of their blends in this month’s testing. Wang was a specialty coffee roaster without plans to teach, but when a coffee she roasted received a 95-point score from us here at Coffee Review (a washed Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Banko Gotiti), she was invited to collaborate with Cultural University in Taipei to lead a roasting course. Lin was Wang’s very first roasting student in 2017; she met Yu in 2018 and has been working with him one-on-one. Wang has kept up with both roasters and their progress, and she has gone on to teach 11 courses and more than 70 beginning roasters the craft.

Wang also offered some thoughts about how “classic” espresso might be interpreted by various kinds of roasters in Taiwan. She says, “Both Jason and Chi Hong are third-wave roasters. Young people here can accept espresso with some acidity and fruit tone — so many creative espressos can be popular if baristas can promote the concept to more customers.” She goes on to say that “older-style” roasters think of “classic espresso” as dark-roasted and bittersweet, hopefully with some chocolate notes. But she adds that, “Young roasters don’t like this style. They prefer lighter-roasted, fruitier coffees, both in the straight shot and in milk.”

Caesar Tu, of Kakalove Café, surmises that many younger roasters in Taiwan, or those new to the coffee industry, might have interpreted “classic” to mean their own favorite and most creative blends. He also attributes this interpretation to a language barrier; our communication with roasters in Taiwan can be difficult in regard to precise meanings. (Let’s just say that their English is infinitely better than our Mandarin.) Tu goes on to say that the Taiwanese, in general, are attracted to new experiences, so most serious specialty roasters are going for experimentation and innovation.

There Is No Conclusion

Sometimes, an inquiry raises more questions than answers, and this month’s report is a coffee case-in-point. One question is why we received 46 samples from Asia and all are from Taiwan.  It may be as simple as the fact that Coffee Review’s presence may be more established in Taiwan than in other Asian regions. Our ‘Coffees from Taiwan’ [台灣送評的咖啡豆] page  displays almost 400 reviews of fine coffees from Taiwanese roasters, considerably more than the number of reviews we display from other East Asian countries. And, despite an obvious language barrier, Taiwan has more Coffee Review readers than any other non-English speaking country. Of course, we would like to have an opportunity to review more coffees from other East Asian countries; in fact, more coffees from wherever in the world we have readers. But we also hope to facilitate even greater engagement with the coffee community in Taiwan and beyond by looking for ways to expand the amount of Coffee Review content available in Mandarin.

But for now, one thing is clear: The roasters from Taiwan whose coffees we tested for this report are obsessed with experimentation and unique blending concepts, and their creativity has resulted in a number of exciting, original espresso blends. Whether they are “classic” or not is also a question we decided we needn’t answer. These thoughtful artisanal coffee experiences are well worth seeking out, regardless of antecedent or tradition.

The post Exploring “Classic” Espresso Blends: Taiwan Roasters appeared first on Coffee Review.

What is clear is that good blending has always been a genuine art, and this year we decided to visit the notion of “classic” espresso blends. Of course, as soon as the word “classic” is uttered, controversy ensues. Instead of using the term in any prescriptive way, we decided to let roasters define it. We simply asked for “classic espresso blends” and left the interpretation open to the roasters.

What we got was a range of blends roasted for espresso, from Italian-style recipes to those described as “fourth wave.” We received 54 samples from roasters based in North America and 46 from roasters based in Asia, almost all from Taiwan.

Italy: Where Espresso Was Born

Tasting espressos, both in the straight shot and in milk, at The Crown: Royal Coffee Lab and Tasting Room. Photo by Evan Gilman.

In Italy, where espresso was born, the straight shot of pressure-brewed coffee is quotidiana: everyday, inevitable. In fact, while ordering a milk-based espresso drink is fine during the morning hours, doing so in the afternoon — or, God forbid, the evening — will guarantee you more than one sideways glance and peg you as a tourist a presto.

The Challenging Practicalities

Even though we limited submissions to one per roaster, we received exactly 100 samples, far too many to test with this year’s lab partner, The Crown: Royal Coffee Lab & Tasting Room in Oakland, California. We decided to rather arbitrarily divide the samples into two groups, one consisting of coffees roasted in North America and another of coffees roasted in Asia. This decision provided almost perfect symmetry in terms of sample numbers but also may end by suggesting some hypotheses about the culture of espresso in the two regions. (This report will cover only coffees submitted by North American roasters, while the Asia Classic Espresso report will come out next month.)

Barista Elise Becker, of The Crown: Royal Coffee Lab and Tasting Room, at work.
Photo by Evan Gilman.

My co-taster for the North American espresso samples was Evan Gilman, a Licensed Arabica Q-grader, musician, coffee-lover, and self-described avid generalist. He was also a most agreeable tasting partner: attentive, precise, and broadly conversational. We spent two days together with barista Ruthie Knudsen on day one and Elise Becker on day two, both talented baristas at The Crown, assisted by Coffee Review’s Jason Sarley, also a Licensed Arabica Q-Grader and multifaceted coffee pro.

Before we could set up shop for this event at The Crown, we still needed to whittle down the group of 54 coffees to a number we knew we could manage in two days. So, Jason and I spent a full week screening all the samples and ending up with 20 finalists to take to our tasting with Evan and crew.

Two Classic Italian Espresso Blends, as Interpreted by Their Roasters

While espresso as a brewing method continues to evolve, it is still based on technologies developed in Italy late in the last century. The machine we used at The Crown is a La Marzocco Linea PB, and Jason (our resident shot-puller) discussed with Ruthie and Elise our typical parameters: 19 grams in, 38 grams out over 27-28 seconds, while suggesting that the day’s barista had license to tweak that formula, as necessary. While this protocol might not be optimal for each and every coffee, it ensures consistency, and that’s important for fairness. We also taste blind, of course, just as we do when reviewing coffees year-round.

Ruthie Knudsen, a barista at The Crown: Royal Coffee Lab and Tasting Room. Photo by Kim Westerman

But what about describing and evaluating the coffees selected for tasting following this protocol? Here is where it gets interesting, and the sensory experience of these coffees was the domain of my tasting with Evan.

We review here seven coffees that scored 93 and 94. Six additional coffees scored 90-91 (none scored 92), and seven others scored between 86 and 89. Not too shabby when you go to consider all the challenges that come into play when developing an espresso blend.

We assumed that many roasters would approach the call for “classic” submissions in terms of traditional Italian blending concepts. Generally speaking, this might mean a large percentage of dry-process coffees from Brazil (the sweetly nutty style of natural, not the fruit-forward type), along with a percentage of Colombia to encourage chocolate notes and perhaps an El Salvador or Guatemala to add nuance and balance  acidity. The blend that pretty much nails that formula is Dragonfly Coffee’s Crema de Dolce Espresso (the name obviously paying homage to its lineage), which we rated at 93. Of this blend, owner and roaster Tamas Christman says, “For me, a classic (specifically northern Italian-style) espresso is characterized by balance and texture. Traditionally, acidity or brightness was not a sought-after component in the espresso profile. Sweetness, body and a slight astringency are the goals. Crema Dolce has been designed to emphasize sweetness and body, with a slight drying on the finish, and not focus on acidity, in honor of this traditional style. It highlights dark cherry, brown sugar, caramel and chocolate, with subtle nuances of soft florals and a velvety-smooth texture across the entire mouthfeel.”

Dragonfly Coffee’s Crema de Dolce Italian-style espresso blend. Courtesy of Dragonfly Coffee Roasters.

Italy is also historically known for including coffees of the Robusta species in espresso blends. Robusta has a bad rap in the North-American specialty world, where it is almost universally associated with cheap supermarket blends. But does it always deserve this reputation?

Here, we have Paradise Roaster’s Espresso Classico (also rated 93), which utilizes Arabica coffees from Brazil and super-clean wet-processed Robustas meticulously sourced from Ecuador by innovative green-buyer Miguel Meza, whose mission it is to find quality microlot coffees from emerging origins. Meza says, “This Classico blend was actually the first coffee I ever sent from Paradise to Coffee Review back in 2004. That coffee also scored 93 points, which was, at the time, the highest score an espresso blend had received and really what helped launch our then-nascent company. Structurally, it isn’t much different today than it was then. It has always included a base of Brazilian coffees alongside washed Robustas.”

The Dragonfly is balanced and richly bittersweet, while the Paradise is cocoa-toned and sweetly tart, and both seemed to me and Evan simultaneously like the most “classic” of the lot in terms of the Italian model. We’d be happy to encounter either of these on the nearest piazza.

So, what other coffees rose to the top in our tasting, and how might these coffees fit into a definition of “classic” espresso?

History Is Not Destiny

At least two espresso blends here include natural-processed coffees of the fashionable fruit-centered style, including Red Rooster’s Old Crow Cupa Joe (93), which combines both washed and natural-processed coffees from Central and South America for a chocolaty, overtly fruit-driven espresso. Roaster Tony Greatorex says the popular blend is designed to have medium acidity and that he pays close attention to the Maillard development phase, which he measures as the beginning of color change (around 300 degrees) to first crack (around 380).  He says, “I’ve found that extending this period accentuates body and creates a mellow, rounded flavor profile, along with a smooth mouthfeel.”

Red Rooster’s Old Crow Cuppa Joe on the bar at the Floyd, Virginia coffee shop. Photo by Tony Greatorex.

“Classic” for Martin Trejo of Amavida Coffee Roasters, whose Espresso Mandarina scored 94, means “persistent crema, heavy body and plenty of sweetness to hold up in milk,” and the Mandarina  delivers on this goal via a post-roast-blending strategy. Trejo says “I roast a washed Congo and natural Ethiopia separately so I can focus on developing each coffee’s distinct profile before blending. This allows me to roast the Congo a little longer than the Ethiopia and focus on bringing out its sweetness to balance the espresso.”

Members of the Congo Muungano Co-op, where one component of Amavida’s Mandarina blend is produced. Courtesy of Martin Trejo.

Folly Coffee’s SOB Espresso (which Rob Bathe assures me stands for Single-Origin Blend; 94) uses a mélange roasting strategy, which involves bringing an identical coffee (or blend of coffees) to two different degrees of roast before blending them.  The SOB Espresso is a seasonally rotating selection, and this version is comprised of coffees from a variety of smallholder farms in Colombia. Bathe says he aims to “bring forward tasting notes of rich, bold, dark chocolate, with a depth of flavor and enough acidity to balance.” He also acknowledges that “classic” can imply “overwhelming notes of bitter and burnt aromas and flavors.” While some percentage of this blend is darker-roasted, he deftly avoids those negatives in favor of fudge-like chocolate notes and deep florals.

Folly Coffee Roasters’ SOB Espresso Blend. Courtesy of Rob Bathe.

Propeller Ace Espresso (93), roasted in Toronto, Canada, is no stranger to Coffee Review’s virtual pages. We first reviewed a version of this blend in 2014, and it has consistently scored 93 or 94. This year’s blend is caramel-toned and chocolaty, with stone fruit notes and rich nut-butter tones. Evan pegged this coffee a “new-wave classic” espresso for its high-toned balance and success in presenting a big, prominent fruit character that is integrated rather than disorienting in both straight shot and milk.

Pulling a shot of Propeller’s Ace Espresso. Courtesy of Propeller Coffee.

Our mutual favorite may have been Highwire’s The Core (94), and Evan and I were both thrilled to discover that this blind-tested winner was also a local coffee for us, roasted just down the street in Emeryville, California. A transparently sourced blend of coffees from Ethiopia, Guatemala, Papua New Guinea (PNG), and Sumatra (all conventionally wet-processed except for the wet-hulled Sumatra), this coffee intrigued us both with its notes of richly tart tangerine zest, earthy-sweet pipe tobacco, and lavish honeysuckle, all enveloped in clear dark chocolate tones. Founder Rich Avella replaces the Robusta in traditional Italian formulas with Sumatra, suggesting that the Lintong coffee in The Core gives “rustic” ballast to the “floral, citric” brightness of the Ethiopia and elegant cocoa of the Guatemala. He sees the PNG as a harmonizing bridge.

Highwire’s The Core Espresso. Courtesy of Highwire Coffee.

Avella says, “Our aim is to create an espresso with expressive, high-end heft, balance and complexity through the skills of sourcing, blending, and roasting. What makes The Core classic first is that it’s a blend. It’s not a single-origin expression of one farm. That can be amazing, too, but we’re excited by the chance to create a coffee that doesn’t already exist through thoughtful blending. To me, classic espresso has depth and tension between brightness and syrupy heft and between bitter and sweet. For a classic espresso to interest me, it also has to have sweetness and juiciness.”

In Closing, A New Definition of Style?

I’m not sure how close we’ve come to defining “classic” espresso, but it has been fun trying. Thanks to the roasters who not only sent in interesting coffees but also took the time to articulate their thought processes when approaching the notion of “classic.”

There’s much talk in the specialty coffee industry about “waves,” second and third, and we’re starting to hear buzz about the “fourth wave,” which we are, perhaps, already wading into. I’ll leave you with a thought from Folly Coffee’s Bathe, who mused on this particular time in coffee history.

He says, “To me, third wave is all about getting the most intense, unique, crazy (in a good way) flavors to come out of specialty coffees as a reaction to the simple and homogeneous flavor profiles found in the second wave. In the fourth wave, there is a bit of a swing-back, and we’re asking how we can create these flavors while keeping balance and harmony to create a more enjoyable cup, not just a unique sip.”

This is as good a definition of the “new classic” as I’ve heard, and all of the coffees represented here fit that model in one way or other.

Stay tuned for the July report on “classic espressos” roasted in Asia.

About Co-Taster Evan Gilman, Creative Director at The Crown: Royal Coffee Lab & Tasting Room.

Evan Gilman’s 17 years in the coffee industry have taken him from barista to trainer to Q-Arabica Grader and SCA-Licensed AST. Evan spent time in Southeast Asia getting to know the specialty coffee supply chain, from Sumatra, Bali, Flores, and Sulawesi in Indonesia, to Northern Luzon in the Philippines. His passions range from Balinese gamelan to heavy metal, from photography to communications design, and from baking to brewing. As Creative Director at The Crown: Royal Coffee Lab & Tasting Room, he manages community events, social media, photo/video production, and graphic design. He is also the chief editor of the blog at royalcoffee.com, and curator of the Gallery at The Crown.

The post Exploring “Classic” Espresso Blends: North American Roasters appeared first on Coffee Review.

Coffee is an absorbing case-in-point for a conversation about blending because of the seemingly infinite number of directions roasters can take in the process. One roaster’s goal might simply be to use up back-stocks of green coffee, resulting in haphazard blends designed with cost-savings as top priority. Another roaster might blend with specific customers in mind, combining different coffees to represent the flavor profiles known to be appealing to those who buy the final blends. And yet another roaster, perhaps the most creative, will have a vision for a potential blend after cupping through the coffees purchased each season. In these cases, the result can be an entirely new experience in the cup, a harmony of high-quality green coffees, each roasted to reflect the coffee’s maximum potential, then blended to show off the best attributes of each in a unique coffee expression.

A Close Look at Eight Top-Rated Blends

In this report, we take a deep dive into eight blends, all of which earned scores between 92 and 94. They are the top-rated from among a total of 64 blends submitted by roasters in the U.S., Canada, Taiwan and China. We also followed up by talking to these eight roasters to learn more about the blends and how each came to be.

One theme that emerged was reassuring: In every case, these blends were born at the cupping table, sparked as ideas by roasters and their expert cuppers, who wanted to offer coffee-lovers something special. In other words, they were not a byproduct of the practicalities of small-business economics or the need to offer a category more mainstream roasters might be pressured to produce along the lines of a “House Blend” or “Breakfast Blend.” Quite the contrary; in most cases, these roasters also sell their blend’s components separately, as single-origin offerings, a further testament to their quality. Each of these artisanally crafted blends tells a story that originates in time and place, and we hope they will resonate for you as they have for us.

Water Avenue “Canoe Blend”

Portland-based Water Avenue Coffee’s “Canoe Blend” (94) is a riff on the theme of water. Matt Milletto, vice president and co-founder of the company, says the blend is named in honor of the humble craft that is the symbol of so much he loves about Oregon, evoking memories of canoeing trips with his father, Water Avenue co-founder Bruce Milletto. Because this blend is also Water Avenue’s equivalent of a non-vintage Champagne—meaning the company strives for relative consistency every year, no matter what the final components of the blend—Milletto prefers not to reveal the precise origins of the individual coffees come from. ­But he did tell us that there are three coffees involved: a Central America, a South America and an Indonesia. This makes sense, given our tasting notes: Dark chocolate tones, perhaps, from the South America; our descriptor of nut-toned toffee might be attributed to the Central America component; and notes of rich sandalwood and forest floor perhaps from the Indonesia. The blend attracted our top score of 94 for its enticing and surprising cup profile.

Milletto goes on to say that, “Blending offers the opportunity to create a product that is relatively stable from year to year both in flavor and in price point. This is something we have found to be highly desirable, especially for our wholesale customers. It is also a chance to tap into another creative aspect of roasting. Creating a blend recipe is much like creating a recipe for cookies, bread or anything else; it asks you to draw on your technical knowledge of coffee, while also expressing something artistic.” And at $14 for 12 ounces, this coffee is a serious bargain by specialty standards.

Corvus Coffee Roasters “Dead Reckoning”

“Dead reckoning” is a nautical term for orienting oneself by carefully tracking distance and direction traveled, and it is an apt metaphor for the precision and beauty of this blend of coffees from Guatemala, El Salvador and Ethiopia. Phil Goodlaxson, of Corvus Coffee in Denver, gets right to the point: “We use really good coffees for all our blends. More than 85% of the coffees in our blends are the same coffees we use for single-origin offerings. The rest would still be considered single-origin microlots, and are from the same producers, just different lots.”

Corvus Coffee’s Dead Reckoning blend. Courtesy of Corvus Coffee Roasters.

Dead Reckoning (93) is sold primarily as espresso, but for this report we cupped it for brewed applications, finding bright, engaging acidity and notes of honeysuckle, spearmint, pomegranate and nougat. The roaster’s goal was to create a fruity and juicy blend that was also chocolaty, and Goodlaxson found that the trick was to work backwards from a flavor—in this case, sweetly tart fruit—and to add both natural- and washed-process Ethiopias to the base of coffees from Central America that constituted his starting point.

Goodlaxson goes on to say that, “These blends are definitely more work than our single origins. We do blend cuppings, which are similar to normal cuppings, except that we have Gibraltars [cupping glasses] in which we combine different percentages of each coffee and taste from the cup. Our blends are constantly evolving because the lots we are purchasing for them are seasonal and sometimes very small. “

Per’La“Miami Winter”

An earlier version of this perennial blend was featured in our Holiday Gift Coffees report for 2016 and remains on Per’La’s menu as a seasonal holiday coffee blend, always developed with the same goal: an evocation of tropical living. Given that Florida’s winter could pass for eternal summer in much of the rest of the U.S., it is apropos that “Miami Winter” (93) is like a tropical breeze: ginger blossom, pineapple and orange marmalade lead the flavor notes for this lively combination of Kenya and wet-processed Ethiopia coffees. It’s fruit-forward, though not overpoweringly so, elegant and deep.

Per’La Specialty Roasters’ Miami Winter Blend. Courtesy of Per’La Specialty Roasters.

Managing partner Paul Massard says, “A lot of larger roasters blend for consistency; we blend to create new flavor combinations and to give coffees multi-dimensional characteristics. We blend all of our coffees post-roast. Because of variations in density, bean size and moisture, each coffee needs to be roasted differently to find its ‘sweet spot,’as these characteristics change the way each coffee takes on heat during the roasting process. For this particular blend, we chose two of our favorite African coffees, an Ethiopia Sidama METAD and a Kenya Kiangundo, then roasted them both slightly differently from our single-origin profiles so that they had similar solubility. What happened when we blended these coffees together was a drastic change from the individual characteristics of each of the components on their own. The combination went from a citric and stone-fruit-heavy coffee, respectively, to a luscious combination of tropical fruit notes.”

Kakalove Café “Wilderness Blend”

Caesar Tu, owner of and head roaster for Kakalove Café in Taiwan, is well known to Coffee Review for his impeccable sourcing and roasting across a wide range of coffee offerings. He took a poetic approach to naming this blend, comprised of four coffees. He was listening to a song in D major when he roasted the coffees, so he deemed it “D Major Blend.” But his colleagues who tasted it convinced him to change the name to “Wilderness Blend” because, for them, it evoked a remote wilderness hike, serene and relaxing. The coffee is a blend of two Ethiopias (a washed and a natural Yirgacheffe from the Adado washing station), a Kenya (from the Mukangu washing station) and a honey-processed El Salvador (from Finca Guayabo).

Sorting cherries at Finca Guayabo in El Salvador. Courtesy of Zoe Shih.

Tu’s primary goal for the blend was to present a sweet coffee that would be light-roasted, yet low in acidity. A common complaint Tu hears from local coffee-drinkers is that lighter roasts strike them as too acidy. So, he developed the roasts of each component a bit longer than he normally would to slightly reduce the perceived acidity, but maintain sweetness.

Roaster and Kakalove Cafe owner Caesar Tu checks the progress of his roast. Courtesy of Echo Liu.

Temple Coffee & Tea “Naturals With Attitude”

This blend’s lighthearted name belies the heavy-hitting nature of the bag’s contents: Panama Finca Deborah Caturra Natural; Panama Finca Hartmann Natural Geisha; Panama Finca Lerida Natural Geisha; and Ethiopia Sidamo Mulish Natural—all coffees with impressive pedigrees in their own right. “Naturals With Attitude” (93) is an unapologetic anthem to dried-in-the-fruit or natural-processed coffees, a blend intensely fruit-driven (bergamot, mango), anchored by notes of sandalwood and baker’s chocolate.

Finca Lerida in Panama, where one component of Temple Coffee’s “Naturals With Attitude” blend was produced. Courtesy of Temple Coffee and Tea.

Temple is a big fan of blends, and has had much success with them over the years. Roaster Jake Deome says, “We really get to know the flavor profiles of our coffees during our daily quality-control cuppings. From there, we roast each component we believe will complement each other separately and combine them on the table to work out the blend ratios. For the “Naturals With Attitude” blend, we (director of coffee Eton Tsuno and Deome) took all of the best natural-processed coffees we had on hand and worked them into a blend that we felt would represent the most ideal combination possible. In the roastery, we affectionately call this practice ‘money is no option blending.’”

Temple’s head roaster Jake Deome working on a Probat UG-15. Courtesy of Temple Coffee and Tea.

Deome adds specific details about this unusual blend: “Each component is roasted using our vintage Probat UG-15. In terms of flavor, the Panama Finca Deborah acts as our flavor base, giving sweetness and balance to the overall flavor, with the Geishas (Hartmann and Lerida) playing off of each other with complex combinations of acidity and flavor. The Ethiopia then fills in the restrained spots in the flavor profile and ties everything together in a neat bow.”

Bird Rock Coffee Roasters “Love Letters”

While San Diego-based roaster Bird Rock’s owner Jeff Taylor focuses 95% of his energy on single-origin coffees, he thinks blending can be useful if it elevates the cup profile of its components. He also likes to give his quality-control team, lead by his wife, Q-grader and roaster Maritza Taylor, a chance to showcase its collective talents.

The Valentine’s Day packaging for Bird Rock Coffee’s Love Letters Blend. Courtesy of Bird Rock Coffee Roasters.

Designed as a Valentine’s Day blend, “Love Letters” combines producer Anny Ruth Pimental’s Loma La Gloria red-honey-processed coffee from El Salvador with a Sumatra wet-hulled Tano Batak. The cup juxtaposes spicy lavender-like florals with notes of fine perique pipe tobacco, moist and earthy-sweet; it also displays a particularly syrupy body. It’s perhaps not a coincidence that Pimental is getting married later this year. This blend is Bird Rock’s homage to both the Valentine’s Day holiday and to one of its favorite farmers, and it’s packaged as a limited-edition gift that includes a postcard for writing your own love note.

Revel “Throwback Blend”

Gary Thiesen’s behind-the-scenes description of Montana-based Revel Coffee’s blending process is that it often starts with a specific request from a wholesale client, which might be as vague as “something bright” or “something fruity.” The next step is to sit down and taste through a range of brewed single-origin coffees together, in order to gauge what the client likes and develop a shared sensory vocabulary. Then Theisen composes several blends of brewed coffees before selecting one. He refines the roast profile of the target blend over several iterations before presenting it to the client.

Theisen combines the green coffees that comprise a blend before roasting it. This is a relatively unorthodox practice in specialty coffee, where the model procedure calls for roasting each constituent coffee of a blend separately to control and maximize its contribution before combining them. In the case of the 92-rated Throwback Blend, however, roasting after blending appears to have worked. One of four Revel blends available to retail consumers, it enchanted us with its berry notes in front, backed by hints of roasted cacao nib and richly aromatic frankincense. It combines two coffees that play upon each other’s strengths: a Colombia Cauca and a Kenya Karamundi, the former described by Thiesen as “the yin to the Kenya’s yang.”

A farm in Cauca, Colombia whose coffees comprise part of Revel Coffee’s Throwback Blend. Courtesy of Cafe Imports.

Theisen calls this blend “Throwback” because it evolved out of Kenya-Colombia blends he routinely experienced as a young roaster learning the trade, the Colombia balancing and grounding the intensity of the Kenya. This coffee is also the best value on our list, at $13.75 for 12 ounces.

Roast House “Costa Coast”

This blend combines beans from Tarrazu, Costa Rica and Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia, and was named in a playful exchange among the Roast House staff, who appreciated the pun on “coast-to-coast” that paired “Costa” of Costa Rica with “Coast” to represent the distance between the Central America blend component and the Ethiopia, a far continent away. Also designed primarily for espresso, Roast House’s “Costa Coast” blend (92) cupped beautifully for brewed applications. The Ethiopia component here is the same Roast House Dimma #9 Ethiopia Natural that scored 93 in our holiday report of December 2017, and its notes of dried strawberry and spice-toned florals resurface here alongside toffee and hazelnut butter suggestions introduced by the double-washed El Balar Costa Rica.

Aaron Jordan is very happy with the Ethiopia DIMMA #9 that just arrived at Roast House. Courtesy of Roast House.

Roast House sells only organic coffees, and owner Aaron Jordan’s goal is “to get organically grown coffees into the cups of as many people as possible, and considering that a portion of the market enjoys blends, we believe there is value in carefully crafting and serving specialty coffee blends.” This particular blend was created by roaster Kyle Siegel, whose flavor goal was to strike a balance between bright acidity and roastiness, which Jordan defines as “enough acidity to perform well as a pourover and enough roast to stand up as espresso.”

Jordan says of blending, in general: “When I started in the industry, blending was viewed as a way to get rid of past crop, lower-scoring and less desirable coffees. But the idea that you can take two or three subpar coffees and blend them together to make a somewhat better product doesn’t make sense. We blend to create a flavor profile and each coffee that goes into the blend scores high enough on a Q-scale to be a standalone single-origin. In fact, the vast majority of our single-origin coffees are also used for blending purposes.”

What We Learned

Of the 64 coffees we cupped in our exploration of blending, the eight that rose to the top of our ratings supported our basic conclusion: The best coffee blends are artisanal products, thoughtfully developed by roasters to create a unique sensory experience through the combination of complementary and disparate flavor elements contributed by high-quality green coffees. Although some of these blends turned out to be striking values given their quality, none appear to have been created to fulfill market categories or to cut costs, but instead to create entirely new coffee experiences.

Though the only goals we began with were to survey the market in order to learn what blends are available to consumers and to evaluate them on the cupping table, we ended up discovering other questions. Why blend? How can blends tell a story or evoke a memory? How can single-origin coffees be transformed, and perhaps improved, by blending? Some answers came by way of these fine blends and our conversations with their creators.

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Single-origin coffees even have come to prevail in the espresso arena, where common wisdom has long argued that the espresso method’s tendency to intensify sensory characteristics calls for the restraint, completeness and balance best achieved by blending.

Why Blend?

Given the potential for excitement and connoisseurship afforded by fine single-origin coffees, what reasons are there to continue to blend? In considering that question, let’s set aside marketing reasons, like creating and branding a proprietary blend that develops its own loyal following, or purely economic reasons, like cutting costs by blending cheaper, less distinctive, sometimes faded beans with more distinctive, expensive and fresher ones.

Sticking to more idealistic blending goals, the most idealistic of all is combining one or more coffees to create a new, striking sensory sensation that has never existed before in quite the same way. Some of the twenty-eight blends we tested for this article appeared to be aimed at that lofty goal, although two of the best took inspiration from a very traditional source: the world’s oldest blend, the ancient Mocha-Java. Both the top-scoring, 94-rated Modern Times Black House and the 92-rated Paradise Coffee Romance by Paradise combined a distinguished traditionally processed Sumatra in place of the original Java with a “natural” or dried-in-the-fruit coffee from southern Ethiopia in place of the original Yemen Mocha.

The Black House was an exceptional example of this pairing, fusing an apparent deep-toned resonance from the Sumatra with a lively juicy presence from the cleanly fruity natural Ethiopia. The similar Mocha-Java-themed Romance by Paradise was a bit darker roasted, and the general structure of the cup drier, brisker and more pungent, with attractive baker’s chocolate and tartly sweet grapefruit notes.

The whimsically named Don Pepe’s Excellent Adventure from Temple Coffee (93) ambitiously combined a sort of junior-varsity version of the rare, expensive Gesha/Geisha variety of Arabica (tagged “Baby Geisha” because it was produced from still-not-mature Geisha trees) with a presumably grown-up dried-in-the-fruit Ethiopia, a very good one, the Boke Ethiopia Grade 1 Natural. The Gesha makes its fragrant floral, cocoa and sandalwood presence felt, though rather timidly. But approached with patience, a subtly intricate blend, dry yet sweet, briskly floral, quietly exotic. Those who like bitters-based cocktails may particularly enjoy it.

The Geisha Coffee Roasters Naturals Special Blend (90) doubled down on dried-in-the-fruit coffees, roasting them rather dark to net a chewy, syrupy cup that lacked vivacity but impressed with sheer weight and presence.

Aiming at the Agreeable

Most of the other blends we tested did not seem to be aiming at creating something striking or remarkable, however. Rather, the goal seemed to be softening and rounding individuality, creating a sensory profile that most coffee drinkers will find attractive, yet almost none will find off-putting or offensive. Remember that many single-origin coffees can be startling in their intensity or individuality. One can imagine a casual coffee drinker innocently buying a very high-grown Kenya or Colombia, for example, and ending shocked or even physically disturbed by their bright, acidy intensity. Or feeling bewildered and put off by the perfumy floral notes of a wet-processed Yirgacheffe, or baffled by the fruit-and-brandy character of a dried-in-the-fruit Central America or Ethiopia.

This second, quite legitimate goal – the creation of an attractive profile that will please nearly everyone while offending almost no one – seemed to motivate the designers of the majority of the twenty-eight blends we tested for this article. The best of these blends generated a pleasing though rather predictable profile: medium- or light-roasted, balanced, with a crisp but softly or delicately bright acidity, satisfying sweetness, lightly viscous mouthfeel (satiny or silky) and a clean though quiet finish. There were engaging differences among these deftly middle-ground productions, but subtle differences.

For example, the GivCoffee Sari’s Backyard blend (92; composed of three Africa coffees), was sweet and hinted at a layered complexity; the Roast House Ride the Edge blend (91) showed distinct floral and sweet citrus nuance. The Tony’s Homestead Blend, the PT’s Flatlander Signature Blend, the Reunion Island Reserve Blend (all at 91), were all in their respective ways gentle, sweet-toned and balanced; you could say the Tony’s showed some sweet citrus and baker’s chocolate, the Flatlander a surprisingly elegant floral top note we decided to call violet, and the Reunion Island Reserve showed, well, just fine balance and a clean, straightforward coffee expression.

The Summer Factor?

It occurred to us that the delicate, balanced, sweetly-bright-but-not-too-bright tendency among many of the best of these blends may owe something to the season. It is summer, after all, at least it is here in the States and in East Asia where these blends were created, and a remarkable number of them invited descriptors like refreshing, summery or meadowy.

Too, some of these blends may be year-round staple offerings designed around building stability throughout the changing seasons of the coffee year rather than making distinct seasonal statements. They may be designed to balance southern hemisphere, summer-harvested coffees with northern hemisphere, winter-harvested coffees, for example. In these cases, again, balance and the relative absence of distinction or strong gestures can be read as a sign of success at maintaining the difficult goal of year-round consistency.

The nine blends we review here, of course, were among the best of the twenty-eight we tested. (Altogether, fourteen of the twenty-eight scored 90 or better.) We also slogged through blends that would best be described as neutral or muted rather than balanced, plus a couple of others that came close to missing the good coffee boat entirely owing to some shadow taint or mild roasting fault. In these cases perhaps the business reasons behind blending I cited earlier were in play: Roasters were getting rid of faded coffees that were hanging around the warehouse too long, or cutting costs with bargain green coffees.

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On the other hand, when the components of a blend are openly disclosed, as they are in the twenty blends we tested for this article, the goal of blending is partly stripped of its branding and cost-savings functions. It becomes more clearly a creative sensory act, aimed at creating a coffee experience that has never existed before in quite the same way, one in which hopefully the sensory whole of the blend transcends the contributions of its parts. This is an idealistic coffee goal, but a worthy one.

Farther long in this piece I discuss some the trends and strategies suggested by the selection of green coffees in the blends we tested. But what I had not quite anticipated was how evocative overall these twenty blends would be in mapping some of the larger trends and polarizations in contemporary espresso blend design, at least as they are playing out in North America with a short detour through one coffee-loving East Asian country, Taiwan.

Co-Taster Ethan Hill, Barista Benjamin Roberts and the La Marzocco Lab

My co-taster for this survey was Ethan Hill, Head of Production at Victrola Coffee. (Victrola Coffee did not have coffees involved in the tasting, of course.) Ethan is a licensed Q-grader who proved to be an experienced and incisive taster and describer of espresso. See the end of this article for Ethan’s impressive bio. We conducted the tasting at the La Marzocco North America laboratory in Seattle, Washington, with shots pulled by the very experienced Victrola barista, Benjamin Roberts. We ended up tasting twenty “open source” espresso blends, seventeen from leading North American roasters ranging from very large to very small, and three from Taiwan-based roasting companies. We sourced over thirty blends, but were forced to limit our tasting to twenty owing to time constraints. Some blends we eliminated because roasters did not send us the minimum of sixteen ounces we need to calibrate the grinder, produce the shots, and take roast color readings afterwards. In other cases we made arbitrary inclusions or exclusions based on how interesting or original the blends sounded based on their constituent coffees.

The Crucial Starbucks Entry

One blend we did include was extremely important, I think, in understanding the entire exercise: the Starbucks Reserve Pantheon Blend No.1. This is a flagship blend roasted in very limited quantities on the small-batch roasting machine prominently displayed on the top level of the spectacular new Starbucks Reserve Roastery facility in Seattle. Like almost everything else involved in the new Starbucks showplace roastery, the Pantheon Blend displays a detailed, almost textbook-like understanding of the latest trends in specialty coffee. The Pantheon is clearly intended as a transparent, open-source blend of the newer kind. The blend name itself implies that this is the first in a series of seasonal blends (Pantheon Blend No. 1; presumably as green coffee opportunities change through the year we will have Pantheon Blends No. 2, No. 3, and so on). Furthermore, the constituents of this version #1 are revealed in considerable detail, in some cases in more detail than revealed by some of the smaller and presumably trendier roasters that produced other blends in the tasting.

Revelation by Contrast

However, as it turned out, the Starbucks blend differed in one dramatic way from all the other nineteen blends we tested: It was darker roasted than any of the others. Not nearly as dark roasted as some Starbucks coffees, but considerably darker roasted than any of the other nineteen samples in our tasting.

And by its mildly roasty presence in the mix the Pantheon Blend dramatized through contrast how relatively bright and high-toned most other high-end North American espresso blends have become in recent years. High-toned brightness obviously can be promoted in a couple of ways; first through a lighter roast style and second through incorporating bright, acidy coffees into blends: bright, floral wet-processed coffees from Ethiopia were one of the favorites in this set of blends, for example, as were wet-processed coffees from a variety of origins in Latin America. Balancing these brighter coffees were everyone’s favorite for achieving smoothness in espresso blends: nutty, chocolaty dried-in-the-fruit or “natural” coffees from Brazil. But also very important in many of these blends were the fruitier, sweeter style of dried-in-the-fruit coffees, particularly those from Ethiopia, which tend to add a juicy, sometimes slightly fermenty fullness to espresso blends. Now and then a robust, presumably earth- or cedar-toned wet-hulled Sumatra put in an appearance as a foil to the brighter wet-processed coffees, but there were far fewer Sumatras than there might have been some years ago when espresso blends were roasted darker and the pungent, woodsy contribution of Sumatras was more valued.

Favored Sweet Spots in the Roast

In respect to final degree or darkness of roast there appeared to be two main “sweet spots” for the creators of these blends. One was just at the very first hint of the “second crack” which signals the transition from medium to darker roast. Of the eleven blends we reviewed at 92 or higher, three were brought to this subtly pivotal point in roast development. Two of them were roasted in Taiwan – Simon Hsieh’s Proud Goat Espresso Blend (93) and the Mellow Coffee Dawning Espresso (92) – and one in the States, the Tony’s Coffees & Teas Ganesha Espresso (92).

However, it appears that the favorite settling spot for final roast color among the North American blends we reviewed was a classic medium roast, roughly where sugars and aromatics are well developed but before any hint of pungent roast taste puts in an appearance. Six of the eleven 92-plus blends, including the top-rated Taiwanese Bignose Espresso (94), roughly fell into the classic medium-roast category.

Roast-Level Outliers

The two outliers in roast development among the eleven reviewed coffees were the Starbucks Pantheon Blend, which showed a distinct dark roast pungency and which by machine reading of roast color was brought to the cusp between dark and medium dark, and the Bonlife Top Shelf Espresso, which, for an espresso, was very light roasted, medium-light to light.

My co-taster Ethan generally appeared to take a more critical position toward the impact of roast than I did; he was considerably more critical of the Starbucks than I was, for example, although he still assigned it a rating of 91. Three or four of the blends that we did not review struck him as too sharp, bitter and/or tart; in these cases my ratings often came in modestly higher than his did.

A New North-American Norm?

At any rate, these espresso blends did suggest a certain overall trend, a new norm perhaps for North American espresso blends: bright but not too bright, medium-roasted, with a balance of moderately acidy wet-processed coffees, round, nut-toned Brazils, and juicy natural, dried-in-the-fruit Ethiopias. Although they did not appear to be optimized for drinking as a cappuccino or other short milk drink, most did show well in cappuccino-scaled milk, softening but maintaining character. And, of course, given the new openness around blend communication, we now have an opportunity to know and appreciate some of the coffee thinking that went into their production and subtle differences.

Final Thanks To …

Co-taster Ethan Hill, Victrola barista Benjamin Roberts, who skillfully dialed in and pulled every espresso shot for the tasting, and La Marzocco North America for the use of its superb lab and equipment, including the support of KEXP Project Manager Amy Hattemer and her staff (not to mention their excellent recommendations for lunch).

About this Month’s Co-Cupper

Ethan Hill is the Head of Production and Quality Control at Victrola Coffee Roasters in Seattle, WA. He was raised on a six-acre coffee farm in the Puna district of the Big Island of Hawaii. He co-founded Puna Moon Estate Coffees in 1995 and the Hilo Coffee Mill – East Hawaii’s first full-service roastery and coffee mill – in 1999. He has over ten years of roasting experience, having served as Production Roaster for Hilo Coffee Mill, Head Roaster for Rimini Coffee Inc. in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Head of Production for Victrola Coffee Roasters. He has taught coffee-related courses on a variety of topics for the University of Utah and the Specialty Coffee Association of America. He is a licensed Q-Grader.  He reports: “I was thrilled to serve as a sensory analyst for Coffee Review’s Open-Source Espresso Blends article, and to contribute my thoughts and impressions to the article. It was exciting to see such a wide range of flavor profiles in the espresso submissions. I was particularly struck by how blends that ended up scoring the same rating were so dramatically different from one another.”

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We review six of these new-style holiday blends here at scores ranging from 95 to 93; all interpret the implicit mandate of the holidays (go hearty, go deep, go fruit-forward) with striking originality. We also review six high-rated, gift-worthy small-lot coffees produced from elite botanical varieties. These are the sort of rare and exciting coffees that have dominated Coffee Review’s highest ratings over the last couple of years.

The Holiday Blend Revival

But first to the new-style holiday blends. The Olympia Coffee Roasting Holiday Blend (95) doubles down on the heirloom Bourbon card, combining an El Salvador Bourbon with what is almost certainly a brighter, more pungent variant on the Bourbon cup represented in a Kenya SL34, one of the two traditional Bourbon-derived varieties that produce the finest Kenya coffees. The result is arguably a more complete rendition of the Bourbon style than can be gotten from one coffee, as well as simply a straight-on seductively crowd-pleasing cup.

A similar doubling down is at work with the Compelling & Rich Panama Geisha Holiday Blend (95), which brings together two preparations of the rare, distinctive and expensive Gesha variety, one a dried-in-the-fruit natural and the other a wet-processed or washed version, the first presumably more lush and sweeter, the second presumably brighter and brisker. The result is a cup as explosive and crisply intricate as a fine single-farm, single-preparation Gesha, but with perhaps a more comprehensive structure and subtler, more balanced nuance.

The remaining four holiday blends reviewed her all appear to be aiming for depth and zesty heartiness, adding some savory and spice suggestions to complicate the fruit and flowers. Three of the four, the deep, peppery, aromatic CQ Holiday Blend (93), the brighter and juicier Seattle Coffee Works Holiday Blend (93), and the crisp, resonant Velton’s Holiday Blend (93) all incorporate a Kenya into the mix, playing its intensity off against other, complementary yet contrasty coffees. The only reviewed holiday blend that does not list specific components, the Geisha Coffee Roasters’ Gratitude Blend, is perhaps the deepest and spiciest of all, slightly darker roasted than the others, achieving an impressive fusion of the tart, the juicy/grapy and the spicy/savory. It is also an impressive value given its rating, as are all five of the non-Gesha holiday blends reviewed here.

The Fancy Single-Origin Options

By pure chance, five of the fancy single-origin coffees we review this month offer a sort of overview survey of the origins and varieties that have tended to attract high ratings on Coffee Review over the last couple of years. Two are dauntingly expensive but extraordinary versions of the now celebrated but still rare Gesha variety, both produced in Panama: The PT’s Auromar Camilina Gesha (95), a magnificent dried-in-the-fruit rendition, big, juicy and ringingly complex, and the Temple Esmeralda Especial Geisha Bosque 2 (94), a classic wet-processed version, brisk, rich and intricate, from the original Gesha producers, Hacienda La Esmeralda.

For less extravagant-minded gift-givers we review a splendid dried-in-the-fruit version of the deep, savory but juicy, big-beaned Pacamara variety (Dragonfly Nicaragua Pacamara Los Congos, 94), a startlingly extravagant fruit-bomb of a dried-in-the-fruit Ethiopia (Old Soul Ethiopia Wenago Natural, 95), and a super intense but lyrical Kenya (Tony’s Kenya Muthonjo, 94).

And a California-Grown Entry

Finally, we review our first ever California-grown coffee, the Good Land Organics California Caturra (91), the product of experimentation by a southern California grower of exotic fruit. The Good Land Organics farm has several other prestigious and distinctive coffee varieties planted, but this Caturra, a sturdy, respected dwarf variety widely grown in Central America and Colombia, produced a quietly original, sweet-toned cup. It may seem odd to call an agricultural product from California rare and exotic, but by coffee-world standards this product qualifies. And, unlike some coffee curiosities from surprising places, it offers an attractive and subtly distinctive cup.

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For this article we tested well over forty blends from thirty-one roasting companies. We focused our attention on blends consisting of a minimum of three different coffees. It turned out that our three-coffee-minimum stipulation definitely limited the pool of candidate blends, since many roasters’ only blends consist of those assembled from two coffees (“two-bean blends” in industry jargon), perhaps because limiting a blend to two coffees allows roasters to more easily invoke the direct-trade marketing appeal by allowing a close focus on the specific sensory identities and stories associated with those two coffees.

We felt, however, that the art of blending arguably is best realized when the blender introduces sensory influences from multiple green coffees rather than working with the contributions of only two. Although, as it turned out, we did appear to miss out on some potentially fine coffee experiences owing to our three-or-more rule. But we will compensate by putting a two-bean-blend survey on our calendar for 2015.

The Espresso Exception

Blends continue to be of prime importance in the world of espresso, of course, despite a growing focus on espressos from a single origin. The generally sensation-intensifying impact of the espresso brewing method assures the continuing importance of blends in which multiple coffees can be deployed to both round and soften over-assertive acidity while compensating by promoting fatter mouthfeel and a low-toned, layered complexity. The continuing importance of blends in espresso may be one reason why, out of the forty-plus blends nominated by roasters for this article, ten were primarily designed for espresso. In many cases, roasting companies may have nominated an espresso blend simply because they had no drip blends on their menus.

The Anti-Blend Arguments

Drip blends are out of style, I think, for several reasons. First, they do not promote the sort of attention to producers and the field-to-cup drama that can be communicated around fine single-origin coffees. Second, the best single-origin coffees produced today are so exceptional and extraordinary that it seems like coffee blasphemy to mute their distinction by combining them with other coffees. Finally, blending is a practice that has come to be associated with a whole array of poor-quality coffee products ranging from rotten-Robusta-ridden canned blends to the thin-bodied, bitter, they-all-taste-the-same “French roast” blends that dominated specialty coffee’s dark ages fifteen or so years ago. No wonder newer roasters avoid blends. Finally, there are practical reasons for roasters to bypass blends. Blends, particularly blends containing three or more coffees, are difficult to formulate in the first place and even harder to maintain consistently, given that constituent coffees may change character season to season and even month to month as they age and fade.

Why Blend in the First Place?

Given all of that, why should a specialty coffee company offer drip blends at all? One reason is business-driven. A roasting company that can establish a taste for and loyalty to a proprietary blend has developed an important business asset that has the potential to grow in value over the years. Other business-driven reasons are more dubious: blends may be a way of getting rid of fading coffees by working them in with fresher coffees, or cutting corners by brightening up cheap coffees with smaller volumes of more vivacious (and more expensive) coffees. Or, more honorably, a blend may simply be a way of producing a solid, consistent, middle-of-the-road coffee aimed at pleasing everyone and offending no one that will work well in food-service environments where only one or two coffee options can be offered.

Creating Something that Never Existed Before

The most interesting reason to blend, however, is the challenge and excitement of creating a new composite sensory experience different from any sensory experience obtainable from a single coffee, even a very fine single coffee. This seemed to be the main goal of the best of the blends we sampled for this month’s article, eleven of which are reviewed here with ratings ranging from 93 to 91.

However, the fact that even the finest of this month’s blends did not pop to 94 or higher gives some support to the idea that blends, with their tendency to substitute balance and completeness for individuality, cannot quite duplicate the shock and excitement of a really fine, genuinely distinctive single-origin coffee. To use a very rough analogy, three or four fine voices singing together may not quite reach the expressive heights of a single great solo voice. But the fascination for me with the best of this month’s blends is how they not only achieved excellent balance, which one would expect from a good blend, but also managed to create subtly original aromatic profiles with very wide sensory referencing, wider perhaps than achieved by even highly distinguished single-origin coffees.

Blending Strategies

The two highest-rated of this month’s blends, the Blue Bottle Three Africans and the Taiwanese roaster Café Est‘s Est Drip Blend, both rated 93, appeared to follow the basic principal of the world’s oldest blend, the ancient Mocha-Java formula: juxtapose a sweet, fruity “natural” or dried-in-the-fruit coffee with a brighter, more acidy wet-processed coffee. Both of these blends complicated the basic Mocha-Java-style formula by adding a third, quieter coffee, presumably to round and perhaps deepen the impact of the two more assertive lead coffees. The Taiwanese Bacca Café’s Dream Blend and the Korean Namusairo Coffee’s Rite of Spring, both rated 92, followed the Mocha-Java principal as well, but doubled down on the bright side of the formula by adding a Kenya to a wet-processed Ethiopia as contrast to the sweeter and rounder dried-in-the-fruit component.

Espresso on the Cupping Table

Finally, the designed-for-espresso blends. We put these on the cupping table mixed in with the for-drip blends and some showed surprisingly well there. They did not offer quite the same pleasures as the generally brighter, livelier drip blends; they often were a bit muted in their acidity, though they tended to compensate with smooth mouthfeel and chocolaty sweetness. We review three here, the award-winning Ganesha Espresso from Tony’s Coffees (92), the Gingerbread Seasonal Espresso from Taiwan’s Donkey Café (91), and the Gamut Espresso from Chromatic Coffee (91). The latter two blends were light-roasted and pleasingly delicate in their honey and chocolate expression. The medium-roasted Ganesha was another matter: big-bodied, resonant, oaky, with deeply sweet, almost carnal floral notes. At least one of the components of the Ganesha betrayed a very slight hint of musty ferment, a note that can bestow depth and resonance in espresso brewing, as it did when we assigned a 94 to the this blend when we tested it as espresso this past November. I found this ambiguous note also worked well this time around on the cupping table, although my tasting partner Jason Sarley disagreed and found it too prominent and distracting in a cupping format. I’m the boss, however, so my higher rating prevailed, although coffee lovers who enjoy only clean sparkle in their drip coffees should be forewarned on this one.

2014 The Coffee Review. All rights reserved.

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True, some of the lower-rated among the holiday blends we sampled simply executed the familiar holiday blend formula – dark roasted but not too dark-roasted, populated by coffees apparently intended to vaguely please everyone and not to offend anyone – in other words, coffees low in acidity to the point of near inertia and often listless in flavor and aroma. It’s possible such blends should be called Holiday Left-Over Blends, on the assumption roasters may be trying to unload decent but potentially fading coffees by reindeer-izing them into something worth celebrating.

Recreating the Holiday Blend

On the other hand, the best of the holiday blends we cupped this year combined distinctive and distinguished green coffees and seemed aimed at recreating the holiday blend in contemporary medium-to-light-roast terms rather than recapitulating it. These blends appeared to aim at offering both the comforting reassurance of the familiar holiday coffee theme – robust, round, hearty – along with the pleasant surprise of something new and striking. The 95-rated Velton’s The Holiday Blend was remarkable both in originality and range of sensation – from tart raspberry-like fruit to deep, pungent sandalwood to honey and flowers. The Velton’s appeared to be a true blend; in other words, it incorporated a combination of coffees that together produced an exceptional sensory profile difficult to associate with any one coffee origin taken in isolation. In this case, the component coffees are a fine, top-grade Kenya and the rare Sulawesi Toarco, a high-grown, conventionally washed coffee from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

The Olympia Holiday Blend (93) is a skillful variation on the ancient Mocha-Java blend formula, a combination of sweet, richly fermenty dried-in-the-fruit coffee and a brighter wet-processed coffee, although in this case the dried-in-the-fruit “natural” component appears to dominate, giving the blend its rich, brandyish holiday character. The Klatch Coffee organic Original Christmas slash Nick’s Holiday Favorite blend (93) doubles down on the fruit-and-brandy theme by combining two distinguished dried-in-the-fruit coffees, both Ethiopias, at least one of which also contributes a pungent, bay-leaf-like spice.

At the lighter, drier end of the holiday blend spectrum are two fine 92-point blends, the CQ Coffee Roasters Holiday Blend (honey, flowers and cocoa) and a surprising Korean entry, the charmingly named Lover Letter for Winter Holiday from Namusairo Coffee, a delicately brisk blend, buoyant and silky.

Gift and Not-So-Gifted Geshas

Regular readers of Coffee Review are doubtless aware that many of the highest-rated (and certainly highest-priced) coffees we have reviewed over the past few years have come from trees of the recently rediscovered and now celebrated Gesha (or Geisha) variety of Arabica. The original Hacienda Esmeralda Gesha discovered growing on the Peterson family farm in Panama and debuted to spectacular success in 2004 has now been joined by Geshas produced on other farms in Panama (including other Peterson farms) as well as on farms in Guatemala, Colombia, and Costa Rica.

First the good news on these new Geshas: Many have lived up to the Gesha hype, sometimes exceeded it. For holiday shoppers looking to splurge on a rare, exceptional coffee we offer reviews of two outstanding Geshas currently available: the 96-rated Barrington Estate Perci Red grown by the Ninety Plus Gesha Estates in Panama (first reviewed in November), and the less distinctive but perhaps more balanced (and a bit less expensive) Panama Finca La Mula Geisha Natural from Equator Coffees (94).

Now to the not-so-good Gesha news: Over the last three months, and for the first time since the spectacular debut of the Gesha variety nine years ago, we have cupped some loser Geshas. Judging from the shape of the beans and hints in the cup, all except one appear to be authentic Geshas. In two cases these authentic Geshas were ruined in the roaster, apparently by clumsy, character-muting roast profiling. But a couple of others came across simply as pleasant but not particularly distinctive green coffees: The beans were Gesha and the aroma and flavor were a little Gesha but the price was far too Gesha: These decent but not distinctive and exceptional coffees did not warrant their sometimes astronomical, name-driven retail price.

All of which is to say, if you splurge on a holiday Gesha buy it from a roasting company with a history of high-end successes, not just with Geshas but with an entire range of its coffees. And make sure you brew it while it’s still fresh, and brew it carefully.

The Notorious Kopi Luwak

Another favorite super-splurge coffee among high-rolling gift givers is clearly more culinary curiosity than culinary revelation, but in the name of holiday extravagance we offer one Kopi Luwak review. You know Kopi Luwak, the coffee processed through the intestinal tract of an animal and the subject of endless incredulity and occasional misplaced reverence. Genuine Kopi Luwaks that have been roasted properly are pleasant enough and subtly distinctive, but you will be paying the big bucks mainly for the story, not for the cup. The Bantuan Foundation’s Wild Kopi Luwak reviewed here at 92 has all the things going for a good Kopi Luwak: Sensitive roasting and the odd combination of low-acid fruit, musk and mushroom that distinguishes the type. Furthermore, this Kopi Luwak is described as gathered from the scat of wild luwaks rather than caged luwaks, and its sale supports an admirable cause: stopping child trafficking and slavery in Indonesia. For another wild civet coffee, this one also with a strong social back story but produced in Thailand and roasted in Canada, visit www.doichaang.com.

Three Classics for the Holidays

Finally, three fine classic coffees from three distinguished origins offered at reasonable prices. The 95-rated Lexington Kikai Kenya (first reviewed in November 2013) is a superb coffee in the Kenya tradition with a holiday-ish savory edge to its intense, richly opulent Kenya orange and black-currant character. The Kickapoo Organic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, reviewed for this article at 94, offers one of the most majestic and lavish expressions of acidity I can remember experiencing in a coffee. Remember that what we call acidity in coffee is a sensation both intensely tart yet luxuriously sweet; imagine the freshest possible juice from the ripest, sweetest possible orange: that rich, deeply sweet, complexly tart sensation is an approximation of the seductive sensation that animates this Yirgacheffe.

Finally, a Sumatra, a favorite origin for many readers at any time of the year. In the case of this month’s refined Sumatra Aceh Takengon (93) from Compelling & Rich roasters, the earthy/musty edge associated with the unorthodox Sumatra wet-hulled processing method is transmuted into a moist, fresh tobacco note, enriching a complexly pungent fruit character we read as papaya, mango and zesty orange.

2013 The Coffee Review. All rights reserved.

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But so far as I and co-taster Andy Newbom of Barefoot Coffee could tell based on this month’s blind tasting of thirty-one North American espressos, darker roasting does not help at all in producing more presence in milk. Aggressive roasting simply resulted in a more limited sensory profile, which stubbornly stayed limited in milk. Milk sweetened and softened profiles, but in general dark roasting left less behind for the milk to sweeten and soften.

As in the Straight Shot so in Milk

In fact, blends that impressed us as straight shots impressed us in milk as well, and often impressed us with an only mildly modified suite of aromatic sensations. True, the sugars and fats in the milk often modified or muted the main sensory themes, but the continuity remained clear. Take the richly sweet lemon notes in the top-rated Counter Culture Apollo blend (93), for example. This ripe citrus sensation read as a sort of rich marmalade in the straight shot but turned creamily tart in milk – a sensation Andy nicely characterized as “lemon curd.” With a couple of other blends we experienced, not change, but amplification of a positive characteristic in milk. The most dramatic instance of a similar-but-better-in-milk character was the West Bean Sweet Sussex blend (92), where the deeply fruity and apricot character of the straight shot opened up and bloomed with an extraordinarily deep, resonant peach quality. It was not the detail of the sensation that was so persuasive, but rather the depth and natural sweetness it developed as it interacted with the milk – excuse the fustiness of the metaphor, but a little like adding a cello to enrich a melody already played by a violin.

Other blends were complex and forceful as a straight shot, maybe just at the edge of too forceful, but plumped up and smoothed out nicely in milk. Note, however, that the forcefulness was not accomplished through aggressive roast, but it would appear through forceful and complex green coffees brought to an (at most) moderately dark roast. Conversely, a couple of blends that relied more on finesse than fullness showed very mild hints of fading in four parts milk – no change in essential character, but a simple dilution in impact.

A Sweet Spot?

Returning to roast, it appears that almost all of the blends that scored well were roasted to a point just before the second crack (the turning point from medium roast to dark), or just into the second crack. Exceptions to the just-at-the-edge-of dark tendency among the blends reviewed here were the solidly medium-roasted Caffé Ladro Espresso (91) and De La Paz 14th Street Espresso (89). The Caffé Ladro blend maintained resonance as well as balance at a medium roast whereas the medium roast may have intensified a slightly imbalanced sharpness in the otherwise impressive De La Paz.

Barefoot Coffee and Andy Newbom

A word on my co-taster Andy Newbom and his company Barefoot Coffee. Last time out with Andy (Botany and the Cup: The Bourbon Conundrum, July 2009) [https://www.coffeereview.com/article.cfm?ID=161]) we cupped at my lab. This time round we tasted espressos at his place, located in a wonderfully relaxed mixed residential and light industrial area in the Silicon Valley town of San Jose. Barefoot generally quietly cooked with technical ingenuity and experiment, staffed by a crew that was uniformly unpretentiously articulate, knowledgeable, and nicely decorated. The espresso blends were prepared with consistency and skill and by Barefoot Barista Trainer Elaine Levia, strong, lovely and coffee wise, on a Nuova Simonelli Aurelia using a doserless Anfim Milano grinder. The Aurelia was set for 9 bars, water temperature 200F (World Barista Championship standards), and the milk heated to between 140F and 160F. We used a standard 2% milk, off the shelf at our local market.

As for Andy himself, how about “a cornucopia of fruit-forward intensity, balanced with an abundance of nuts … decidedly sparkly and loaded with tongue-in-cheek sweetness. A trifle un-tattooed and under-pierced on his own, mercifully he is backed by the best coffee people anywhere in the form of the Barefoot Coffee team. Best served chilled (never hot) to appreciate the refreshingly over the top, idiosyncratic voice of this catador. This vintage 1969 coffee maniac is seriously head over heels in love and spends almost every hour of the day drinking coffee juice. Pairs well with his life-long love and bride Nanelle.” In Andy’s words, of course. I should add that, un-tattooed and under-pierced as he may be, Andy was displaying a pretty original set of facial hair during our tasting.

The Value of Blind-Tasting Espressos

I now come to the repetitive but apparently obligatory defense of blind-tasting espressos using standardized preparation protocols. To quote from an article I wrote a year ago:

One would think that given the almost universal use of uniform blind tasting protocols and procedures to evaluate virtually every beverage and food now existing in the Western world we would not have to defend the use of those same protocols and procedures to evaluate espresso. Nevertheless, a passionate group of espresso aficionados in particular questions us every time we run another blind tasting of espressos.

Admittedly there are unusual issues at play in evaluating espressos. Coffee generally is a fragile beverage that is in a continual state of re-creation. In particular, there is an intimate interplay between the espresso coffee and the extraordinarily complex act of brewing it on expensive, sophisticated pieces of machinery. I certainly have no problem with people publishing reviews of espresso coffees in which they have made every possible adjustment within their technical capabilities to maximize the performance of the coffee being reviewed. This practice provides valuable insight for everyone.

On the other hand, there also is enormous value in gathering a lot of coffees in one room, subjecting them all to the same protocols and procedures (protocols and procedures that reflect a consensus of industry leaders), and with everything stripped away except the fact of the cup itself, with all triggers of expectations, loyalties and coffee ideologies hidden and out of sight, taste and report honestly on what one has tasted.

Very likely there were some espressos in this month’s tasting that might have attracted higher ratings had they been extracted at, for example, higher water temperatures or lower temperatures. Or using one of many brewing nuances available to skilled baristas like Elaine, whom I am sure felt limited by the consistencies we imposed on her. Doubtless she felt that, let loose with the blends and the sophisticated equipment she had at her disposal at Barefoot, and given enough time, she could have made some of these blends impress more than they did.

However, I think caveats are in order, not excuses. First of all, baristas, like roasters, have certain habits developed out of the very depth of their engagement with their craft. A barista working with a familiar style of blend may know very well how to maximize its performance, but may not be as skillful with another style. By allowing for blend-specific technical tweaking we would thus risk at least the possibility of creating an uneven playing field.

Secondly, blends that do well at standard brewing parameters, using standard protocols, carry at least some reassurance that they are versatile enough to perform well in home equipment with its typically very limited control of brewing variables. Which is, after all, the main point here: We want our readers to be happy with their espressos.

2010 The Coffee Review. All rights reserved.

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