Create Your Own Coffee Blend

6 Parts:

The Two Common Types of Coffee Beans

Experimenting with Different Blends

How to Create Your Own Blend Artistically

Tips, Tricks and Warnings

Questions and Answers

Comments

Why would you want to create your own coffee blend? Think of it as having the same motivation when you created the four-star dish to the delight of your family and friends. This time you're creating your own signature blend to your own liking. Imagine enjoying a cup of coffee that can be had exclusively at your place, filling the house with the rich aroma of the finest roasted beans. Don't let the idea intimidate you because, in an instant, you can be a barista in your own home.

Blending a single-origin coffee together with a complementing variety can give you a cup of coffee with enhanced flavor. This is one of the reasons why coffee producers and roasters are creating coffee blends. Aside from having a signature fusion, creating your own coffee blend allows you to have a consistent cup profile at reduced costs.

Economically, this makes sense if you're roasting commercially. Combining cheaper coffee with specialty beans can bring down the cost of your coffee products. However, the quality of coffee beans can differ between farms and regions. The only way to meet customers' expectations to have the same consistent taste from one cup to the next is to minimize the differences among the blended coffee varieties. Although the result is often bland, or as they stylishly call it "balanced" coffee, it succeeds in creating a unique flavor profile. Herein lies the true artistry of coffee blending - the natty trick of combining the unique qualities of several coffees to come up with a totally new coffee that is even better than its sources.

Not only artisan roasters are melding coffee beans to create their signature blend. With specialty coffee now a part of fine cuisine, and with the availability of coffee products and basic equipment for coffee making, it is becoming common for many people to be more experimental in brewing house cappuccinos and fancy coffee cocktails. However, even if you've invested in state-of-the-art equipment, you still need to be equipped with the basics of coffee flavors and cup qualities that will cater to your personal coffee preferences.

For you to create a café worthy blend at home requires some basic knowledge of coffee geography, botany, and chemistry - the origin, qualities, and how they will react when combined together. Understanding these characteristics will set you off to your blending passion at home.

• Arabica Bean: The bush is grown in almost all parts of the world and its beans are what compose over 70 percent of all coffee beverages. It is highly flavorful, yet it contains less caffeine. The soil, climate, and even the foliage can affect the flavor of Arabica beans. This explains why there are multitudes of flavor associated with Arabica beans. For example, the smooth, floral Ethiopian Arabica beans greatly differ from the bitter tasting Kenyan Arabica beans because they are from different origins.

• Robusta Bean: Also known as the Canephor, the Robusta bean is found worldwide, but is mostly cultivated in Asia. Compared to Arabica beans, Robusta beans have less oil but with more caffeine which tends to give the acidic and bitter taste. Despite these qualities, the beans are used for blended coffees and as expensive roasts for gourmet coffees, like Kona and Java.

The key to finding the right formula for your own signature blend is patience. Give yourself leeway to commit a few mistakes and celebrate success as you experiment with dozens of recipes for blending coffee. You'll find that the biggest challenge is how to achieve consistency. Nevertheless, you may consider trying to concoct these blends to get the feel before seriously formulating your own blend.

1. 1
   Mocha-Java Blend

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   This classic combination is made of 1/3 Yemen Mocha and 2/3 Sumatra Mandheling, both roasted at full city. The blend results in a smooth, rich, full body coffee with deep cocoa flavor.

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2. 2
   Kona-Columbian Blend

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   This gourmet coffee blend is a combination of the mild taste of Kona coffee and the rich body of Colombian Supremo. One cup gives you a taste of two different parts of the world.

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3. 3
   Black and Tan

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   Combine equal proportions of dark-roasted and light-roasted Columbian coffee to bring out the qualities of the beans roasted at different levels.

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Creating your own blend is not anything different from how you vary the measurement of ingredients when you cook or brew your coffee. Don't be intimidated by the technical conversations on how to blend a variety with which one. The best thing to do is have fun and experiment until you've perfected a cup profile you can truly call your own.

1. 1
   Brew your base coffee in the manner you typically brew your everyday coffee

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   The base coffee accounts for most of the flavor. A good starting point is to measure the base at 50 percent to be enhanced by the complementary varieties you'll choose next.
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