Hi,

just a newbie question. I recently started experimenting more with different kinds of brewing (pourover and french press). Now, the question is, are there any blends that are much better for "drip" rather than for espresso, and vice versa?

I mostly drink espresso, but sometimes I'm too lazy to turn on the machine, clean up, all that stuff. Do I need to buy different coffees? I would then need to freeze them probably because I'm just one little person and I don't drink 6 cups a day. Or the other way around, Stereo from Heart, Toscano from Counter Culture - would they work in any way for pour over? What if I bought a "non-espresso" blend and used it for espresso. Results wouldn't be that astonishing, would they?

Please enlighten me.

While blends are common for espresso, they are rarely used for brewing in the specialty coffee world.

Instead, single origin coffees are mainly used for brewing. In some cases roasters will offer different roast profiles for the same SO coffee-one that is optimized for espresso and another for brewing. It seems like other roasters are moving to a single roast profile that does double duty for both.

If espresso is your main goal, I'd just brew with those coffees. Maybe try some SO espressos that might work well both ways.

While blends might be used rarely among the "specialty coffee world" (whatever that is ) I find that most coffee I'm roasting tastes great either way. They just might taste different than one would expect. Disclaimer: I don't buy into many of the absolutes so often stated about how or how not to roast, brew, drink, etc. Just like our friend weebit_nutty, I'm a strong proponent of trying it, and if I like it I'll repeat it.

It took me awhile to arrive at this opinion: I'd rather have fun with my coffee than agonize over dogmatic theories. If a theory seems plausible, I might try it and see if anything improves, but otherwise I'm just roasting, brewing, drinking, learning. Fun!

Sorry for being long winded...

So it's normal to buy something different from Counter Culture and use it for both espresso and pour over? I thought I'd have to buy two different coffees. That was my question.

So it comes down to whether I like it or not? Is brewing those espresso blends "easier" or more forgiving?

You can buy different bags of coffee for espresso and brewing, but inventory management may get complicated. The main goal as I see it is to drink freshly-roasted coffee. So in my case, I buy coffee primarily for brewing, and just pull shorts with whatever I happen to have on hand.

If you're not going to brew a lot, you might get by just fine brewing with the coffee you have on hand for espresso. But if you want the "best" coffee for brewing, I would shop for single origins, based on whatever qualities you like in the cup.

You may have noticed this thread on the forum:

Any roasters offering small quantities of coffee?

One way to keep fresh coffee on hand both for espresso and brewing is to shop for these smaller sizes. For example, Mountain Air Roasting offers a 4-pack for $30 delivered to your door:

http://www.mtnairroasting.com/shop/

You could order 3 small bags for espresso and one for brewing and actually get through all of the coffee within 2 weeks of the roast date. It's great way to try more coffees in general, and to try different coffees side by side-and not have to serve coffee past its prime.

achipman wrote: "specialty coffee world" (whatever that is )

Some call it dogma; some call it collective knowledge and best practices:

http://www.scaa.org/

Regardless, I'm not sure what a better term is. If there was vin diagram showing Home-Barista in relation to the Specialty Coffee industry, you'd probably find a lot of overlap:

SCAA 2014 Report
2014 SCAA "Famous" Faces In Specialty Coffee
2014 SCAA Roaster Round-up (VERY BIG)
I just met Erna Knutsen, the Godmother of Specialty Coffee, by accident.
SCAA 2014: What do you want to see?
SCAA 2014: My random commentary (now with photos)

In brewed coffee, the water to coffee ration is roughly 15:1; in espresso, it is ten times that, about 1.5 to 1. This puts limits on the kinds of coffee that can be made as espresso: coffees like Kenyas, where the acidity and spice flavors usually exceed the sweetness, mostly do not work as espresso. Ethiopian coffees and Geishas are currently very popoluar because they are substantially sweeter than sour and bitter, so they work at just about any roast for just abiut any and all brewing methods. But the range of coffees for which this can be said is far narrower than the range of all great coffees.

Most coffees, even relatively dry ones, can be roasted in ways that make them palatable for espresso. But they may end up tasting flat as brewed coffee, and the roast may have ended up turning a great brew coffee into a mediocre espresso. The opposite is also true, and coffees that are sweet enough to make superb espressos often make mediocre brewed coffees if roasted in ways to pull up the other flavors.

In the last ten years, even cuppers who usually just drink brewed coffee have been affected by the growth of straight espresso appreciation. So the trend has been to locate coffees that can be roasted light and still work as espresso. This has increased the price of sweet, berry fruit, chocolate and caramel coffees which do well as espresso, and depressed the price of citric, spice, tannic, woody, and savory coffees, which do not.

Why are blends used less than single origins for brewing (specialty coffee)?

Is it because a carefully crafted blend is inherently inferior to an excellent single origin? Or is it a matter of fashion and economics?

Sure. As long as a concept like "terroir" is in fashion, then a SO coffee will have added cache. Once you start blending coffee for brewing, you lose what makes each micro-lot unique.

Espresso is more likely to benefit from blending precisely because it is so concentrated in terms of the water to coffee ratio. Every shop needs a house espresso that is somewhat consistent, stands up in milk and is ideally relatively easy to work with. If you look at how different cafes are operated, it would appear that those goals are easier to accomplish with a blend, especially since the availability of individual coffees will vary seasonally. (You can also save some $ by using some less expensive beans in blends.)

Eastsideloco wrote:While blends are common for espresso, they are rarely used for brewing in the specialty coffee world.

That will be startling news to thousands of coffee shops. I think you are referring to the highest end specialty shops ("third wave"), and even there it is not unusual to encounter a blend.