The Four “M”s of Perfect Coffee, Part 3: Mix

(This is Part 3 of a 4-part series called “The Four ‘M’s of Perfect Coffee”, in which we’ll talk about the four elements of making great espresso-based drinks at home: Machine, Mill, Mix (blend), and Method.)

The Third “M”: Mix

The trouble with pinning down a good mix, or espresso blend, is two-fold. The first, clearly, is that taste is subjective; there are as many different blends as there are people to drink them and not everyone’s tastes are the same. The second is more logistical: not every coffee is available everywhere, so even if you know exactly what you want your espresso to taste like, you may not be able to find the coffee you need at your local shop.

Almost every coffee shop sells its own espresso blend by the pound, so the simplest way to get a good mix is to find a shop whose espresso drinks you like and simply buy their blend. If you can do that, you’re already in good shape. If you’re extra-finicky about your espresso blends like I am, however, you may find yourself wanting to “tweak” the blend you just bought, or even build your own blend from the ground up. It’s not as hard as it sounds, but there are some basics that should govern any good espresso blend.

(Keep in mind that, again, tastes are subjective and I’m largely advocating the kind of blends I personally tend to like. However, running a roasting facility gave me the chance to get daily feedback on different blends and roasts, so this approach has been road-tested.)

The first thing to decide is what you want your blend to do. Do you want a sugary, floral nose in your shots, or do you want rocket fuel with a bold body and mouthfeel? You don’t have to have a PhD in coffee vocabulary to know what you like, and building a blend is just a matter of translating what you’re looking for into the beans you select. A rule I stick by is to go for one particular quality, such as sweetness or smoothness or “caramel”, then blend to get that effect. You don’t want to make it too complex or try to make your blend do everything at once, so don’t overthink it. To keep it simple, I usually sum up the basics of a good blend as base, body, and acidity.

Once you know your general aim, find your base blending coffee. Your base will be the highest percentage of the blend, and should be an easy-to-find coffee that has good body and is not too “punchy”, like a Brazilian Cerrado or a Colombian Supremo. Essentially, your base coffee is the canvas you’ll build your effect on, so you don’t want a “crazy” coffee like Yemen Mocha or Ethiopian Harrar or its high percentage will cause it to dominate the other coffees in your blend.

Next pick your body coffee. Your body coffee is the coffee that will affect how robust your shot will be, whether it will be bold or smooth on the palette. Some people believe that your body coffee should be the base, i.e., the biggest percentage of the blend, but I disagree. Your base coffee lays the groundwork and your body coffee skews the overall effect towards boldness or smoothness. If you use a bold, citrusy coffee like Kenya AA for your base, for example, the result is often going to be an acrid or sour shot. Use a smooth coffee like Indian Monsooned Malabar as a base and the result can be flat and too nutty. But as a body coffee, Kenya gives just enough punch and Indian gives just enough smoothness.

Last, your smallest percentage in the blend should be your acidity coffee. A pleasing acidity is the hardest thing to get right in an espresso blend. A general rule is that the “wilder” your coffee, the smaller percentage of the blend it should be. A proper Ethiopian Harrar has a nose of blueberries, coffee blossom, and lemon–an especially good Harrar will be all over the place, so while it’s good for the acidity portion of a blend, you’d want to use less of it than you would of, say, an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe which is less complex. Put simply, the more complex an acidity your chosen coffee has, the more acidity will be in the shot, so the tangy-er your coffee the less of it you should use lest your shot get too acrid.

Got Any Recommendations?

I usually say to never use less than three coffees or more than five, in a ratio of 3:2:1 for base, blend, and acidity coffees in the mix. Again, this is purely subjective, and you’ll want to experiment with different coffees and percentages to find what’s right for you. But these are blends I like and have had considerable luck selling. The following coffees are listed as the base, blend, and acidity coffees respectively.

Brazil Cerrado, Colombian Supremo, Kenya AA–a solid workhorse blend that makes a great start to play around with. With the right roast and the right percentages, it’s a perfect balance of body and acidity. Smooth, but not lazy. Bright, but not too punchy.

Guatemalan Antigua, Colombian Supremo, Ethiopian Harrar–a blend that’s a little wild. It should yield a shot that’s smooth and tangy, with a heavy suggestion of blueberry and lemon in the nose. Pretty adventurous overall. Be warned that Harrar makes the blend so it’s crucial it be roasted to a city roast or lighter, and not many roasters know how to properly handle a Harrar.

Nicaraguan Segovia, French Roasted Nicaraguan Segovia, Sumatra Mandheling–smooth and spicy. It should have a caramel body with a lingering taste of cinnamon and cedar. Go lighter on the French Roast than you’d normally go with a body coffee or it might railroad the Sumatran into a flat shot.

Brazil Yellow Bourbon, Indian Monsooned Malabar, Sumatra Mandheling, French Roasted Nicaraguan Segovia–I feel a little guilty posting this, really. This is my own “signature” blend, mapped to be as smooth and sweet as possible while retaining a complex finish. It leads with peanut, sweet cream, and brown sugar on the palette, giving way only at the last second to cedar, clove, even a little bit of lemon. There’s a scrap of French Roast thrown in cement the sweetness, but I should note here that my French Roasts tend to be lighter than others. Most “French Roasts” these days are really Vienna or even Italian roasts, practically carbonized. If you can’t find a smooth, sweet French Roast then just use more Sumatran here.