Coffee Taste and Flavor |
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Coffee Taste and Flavor |
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Very few beans from a single source can produce a well rounded cup
of coffee on their own. In any case, most coffee companies want
their brands to be consistent, and only with constant careful and
subtle changes in proportions and roasting will a coffee blender
maintain roughly the same taste from month. Frost, drought, disease
or revolution can cause a particular coffee to became unavailable or
just too expensive, and in such cases its place in the blend in the
blend must be taken by some other coffee, probably from some other
part of the world, without the consumer noticing the difference in
either taste or price. The more coffees in a blend, the easier it is
to swap one if necessary. But yes, there are some superb coffees that can be drunk alone and unblended - at a price. They are probably all high-grown arabicas and will come from small specialist shops: most supermarket "single-origin" coffee is - probably to its improvement - a blend of coffees from a single country of origin, which is not the same as an unblended coffee. The coffee equivalent of an estate-bottled wine will probably have a flaw that can be a bit off-putting to anyone but a connoisseur: it will lack "body" or be "thin in a cup", will feel "watery" when drunk, or will produce a "weak liquor", no matter what the coffee/water proportions were. There are some coffees whose taste far outweighs the need for a fuller liquid; all aficionados, however, have different opinions and different favorites. One should never be afraid to try blending one coffee with another. Sometimes two different taste result not in a combination of the two, but in the happy creation of a third flavor. Certain coffees, such as the famous Mocha-Mysore coupling, have long maintained happy marriages (Probably better than those of their consumers). The arabicas are generally identified by varying degrees of acidity, which is the pleasant, sometimes citrus flavor that "lifts" coffees of better body but "flatter" taste. Acidic coffees go well in blends designed to be drunk with milk or cream, as the alkaline seems to mellow the acidity while the arabica taste, delicate but decisive, comes through. Other coffees are added to blends because of their body or their winey, gamey, smoky or cheesy flavors, and such blends are probably best drunk black, perhaps after dinner. Not only the combination, but the proportions of coffees used in a blend will alter the result; and nothing affects a blend of coffee more than the degree of roast. |
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