In the current Bar News, an article about coffee by us has been published. It covers the topic of blending whiskey and other specialty products such as cigars, perfume, and coffee.
Some excerpts below. And here is the ganze article as a PDF.
With coffee, it's like with almost all other products in the gourmet and specialty sector. The purer the variety, the more exclusive, differentiated, and better – that's the current mantra of the specialty scene.
But it all starts with the blend. For very practical reasons. Coffee is the dried kernel of a cherry-like fruit and grows on shrub-like trees. It is harvested once a year in most regions of the world. A picker walks from bush to bush and harvests the coffee. Many producers are small farmers, and different Arabica varieties grow on their farms: Typicas, Catuaís, Bourbon. During harvest, the cherries land together in the basket and are mixed, washed, dried, and bagged. The farm blend is created.
Coffee Quality Offensive
Over the last 20 years, a quality revolution has taken place in coffee. Coffee has learned from other complex pleasure products like wine and has developed its own language of coffee sensory analysis. Through the ability to describe and evaluate coffee in much greater detail, a lively exchange has emerged between coffee producers on one side and roasters and baristas on the other. Producers began deliberately separating individual varieties from each other and dividing farms based on topography, sunlight exposure, and shade density. The lots created this way were processed separately, followed by analysis in the cup. Increasingly exceptional flavor profiles emerged.
This exchange about coffee quality and flavor profiles triggered a revolution in the coffee sector. Roasters changed their roasting methods. Their goal from then on was to showcase the distinctive notes of single-variety coffees. For decades, the tendency was to roast dark, with roasted notes from caramelized sugars, chocolate, and nuts taking center stage. Gradually, the focus shifted to highlighting the exceptional notes in the cup. Fruity, citric, and floral notes were the result. Roasting became lighter to show more of the "terroir" in the cup. Café-bars and baristas picked up on this and marketed these coffees as single origins, micro- and nano-lots.
New Developments in Coffee Blending
The latest efforts aim to make the best coffees even better through blending. However, there are many challenges in the coffee field. This is particularly because coffee is not a finished product like wine or whiskey after roasting. It still needs to be brewed. And different coffees have different solubility and typically different sweet spots. Therefore, blending and brewing top coffees may be the most challenging aspect of coffee altogether.
