Hi!

I'm looking for some basic advice on creating blends. I'll be very thankful for your thoughts.

I would also like to hear how the blended beans contribute to the overall taste. Are there any rules or clues?

A little background:
I was drinking two coffees interchangably for last few months: Papua New Guinea Sigri and Papua New Guinea Kimel Peaberry, because I was very satisfied with both. I order both roasted City+, after having tried darker. The thing is that I tried - out of curiosity - blended shots with them.
At half to half, there was nothing interesting.
But with proportions of 3-4g of one and 11-13g of the other one, both ways, I got very nice and pleasing results: with the peaberry being the larger part it gave rich, fruity-sweet shots, fruity-aromatic and balanced, and the other way, with Sigri being the dominant, I got nice almond taste, delicate roast flavours, a touch of cocoa and very delicate fruitness like grape juice, (but not that the fruitness was lacking).
The blended shots were brewed at the same temp as the coffees on their own - 91C.
In comparison to the taste of the beans on their own, the non-half-to-half blending opened new dimensions of taste and that's why I'm asking about some clues, rules or experiental truths.

Thanks,
Pawel

Put nicely here:

http://www.hasblog.co.uk/how-to-make-an-espresso-blend

I'll normally start with a single origin which shows some espresso friendly traits during cupping, put it through the machine and see what it would benefit from; this will usually be either more body, more sweetness, more acidity or a cleaner finish. When you identify what you need, take an educated guess at what proportion you should add and tweak from there.

As an example we recently had a few boxes of Daterra Special reserve from Brasil which was a great heavy chocolate and black cherry espresso but was edging towards being cloying so I threw in 30% med roast Pasto from Narino, Colombia which was full of sweet bright red summer fruit, particularly raspberries. That was a nail on head moment, normally it takes a few tweaks but this was a really nicely balanced espresso. A successful blend should be greater than the sum of its parts.

Thanks, very good reading. Yet the mysterious part is to figure out how the beans will work together... I suppose that this is the experience part.

See if this helps:

http://morecoffee.com/public/coffee/blend_maker.php


Cheers

Another article http://www.sweetmarias.com/blending.php

Marvin

My advice is similar to what was stated above. Cup a bean and try to guess what it would be at a different roast level, or make several different roast levels. Then try each as espresso. Take the one you like the best and add another bean to it depending on what it lacks.

I think for the beginner these 2 bean blends are really the best and can save a bean that is -almost- espresso worthy from being demoted to drip or give-away. To me drip and other methods to brew are not as enjoyable as espresso even given the limitations and problems espresso brewing has.

Usually I try different coffees to see if I can find their SO potential. If it really doesn't work, roast up a batch of my favorite Brazil at the time and blend until it's nice. Once that's gone I move on to the next experimental SO. Generally I end up drinking the SO and just enjoying it as-is, but there are times where I toss in the Brazil.

Marvin, thanks for the link - it was a great reading!
Looks like I have a bit basic, amateur approach with the question I posed. I wonder how accurate can be a graphic calculator like the one in Rafael's link? I developed a way of graphical presentation of multitones some time ago, but that worked more as a tool for comparison. Here this seems to be just a proportional graph. But some taste mix together and develop another one. Don't they?

Andre, thanks for your experience, I've just ordered brazil coffee (Fazenda Caprim Branco) with the thought of adding some to the PNGs I blended. But that's for future; for now I'm going to try it on its own.
I ordered it City+ too. I find most of the coffees I drank to be fullest at this degree. But it very much may be so that I love the fruitness. But this I'm afraid is another topic, to explore after I get my own roaster.

Thomas, thanks!! I did only have time to look through it briefly, but I noticed there are great articles on roasting - the home roasting folks shall be thankful and happy - lightening the roast and some roasted-bean-photo-porn - excellent!!