I've just started getting into espresso blending, a wholly new set of challenges! To kick things off, I was trying to follow Mike Walsh's recommendations posted in the aficionado guide to blending on this site:

40% Brazilian yellow bourbon, dry-processed (the base)
20% El Salvador diamante pacamara, washed (for brightness)
10% Ethiopian harrar longberry, dry-processed (more brightness)
30% Indonesian Sulawesi, washed (for body)

Problem is, I can't get past the musty, earth taste of the Sulawesi. Since I'm not yet roasting myself, I can't get rid of the this taste with the long roast that Mike recommends. However, if I just drop the Sulawesi in favour of more Brazilian, I'm afraid I'll lose out on body (and get a boring blend). Which other beans add body without adding this strong earthy taste?

Attempting to create espresso blends with someone elses pre-roasted coffees is putting the cart before the horse.

Java or Sumatra. Java would probably be cleaner, in general.

This is an example of an old style 1234 blend, common about 4 to 5 years ago. This is a preblend (blend the green beans) where you are looking for 40% of a creamy brazil with chocolate or cocoa flavors, 30% of an oak flavored Sumatra or Sulawesi, preferably aged (think single barrel Bourbon, XO, or Napa Chard), 20% winey or fruity Ethiopian, and 10% crisp central or East African.

With the coffees available today, I'd drop the Harrar in favor of a DP Sidamo or Yrg, use a clean Lake Tawar Sumatra or Blue Batak Sumatra, either aged or new, and whatever Brazil is currently getting raves for espresso. I'd also stop preblending and just roast these individually and mix 1:1:1. Roast medium speed and light for the Sidamo, slow and medium for the Brazil, and fast and dark for the Sumatra.

Enrico75 wrote:Since I'm not yet roasting myself...

Note, posts explaining how to roast whatever are rather moot since OP isn't doing any roasting! Hence my previous cart before the horse reply...

another_jim wrote:This is an example of an old style 1234 blend, common about 4 to 5 years ago. This is a preblend (blend the green beans) where you are looking for 40% of a creamy brazil with chocolate or cocoa flavors, 30% of an oak flavored Sumatra or Sulawesi, preferably aged (think single barrel Bourbon, XO, or Napa Chard), 20% winey or fruity Ethiopian, and 10% crisp central or East African.

With the coffees available today, I'd drop the Harrar in favor of a DP Sidamo or Yrg, use a clean Lake Tawar Sumatra or Blue Batak Sumatra, either aged or new, and whatever Brazil is currently getting raves for espresso. I'd also stop preblending and just roast these individually and mix 1:1:1. Roast medium speed and light for the Sidamo, slow and medium for the Brazil, and fast and dark for the Sumatra.

Jim, thanks for the bottom recipe. I've not try the Blue Batak as yet, and have been using Java and a bit of Monsooned Malabar.
Trouble is the Brazilian. I can't quite nail that roast for enough sweetness. A work in progress.

Thanks a lot for the advice folks! Plenty of ideas to work on.

@miKe mcKoffee: point taken, but roasting isn't feasible for me right now. I'll try doing my own blend at least, instead of having the beans roasted AND blended by others.

@roadman: that's what I call intuition! I'm indeed getting my beans from Rast. Thanks for the great tip about getting them custom-roasted. That would get around the problems highlighted by miKe and Jim. Brilliant!

@another_jim: great advice Jim, very appreciated!

another Jim say:

With the coffees available today, I'd drop the Harrar in favor of a DP Sidamo or Yrg, use a clean Lake Tawar Sumatra or Blue Batak Sumatra, either aged or new, and whatever Brazil is currently getting raves for espresso. I'd also stop preblending and just roast these individually and mix 1:1:1. Roast medium speed and light for the Sidamo, slow and medium for the Brazil, and fast and dark for the Sumatra.

Pre-roast and blend. I'll try it today. I have SM DP Haile Selassie Sidamo, Brazil MoFo (great stuff BTW) and aged Sumatra Lintong Peaberry.