Are you a single origin or house blend drinker?
For those of you who don’t know, a house blend is coffee that comprise of multiple beans of different origins, which produces a flavor of combined features. It is the opposite of single origin that only comprise of a single type of beans with a specific location). So, which one do you like the most?
I personally prefer to drink single origin as I am in the phase of exploring different coffee. However, occasionally I drink house blends and even tried making my own blends. I get most of my international coffee beans from Starbucks with an exception of local’s coffee that I either get locally or buy online. My favorite international coffee would be from latin america in which Starbucks offers various of it.
From Starbucks itself, I like pike place roast that I always restock every now and then. But since pike place was not available, the other day I got a house blend from starbucks which is also a blend that comes from Latin America. Unlike Pike Place that said on the packaging smooth and balanced, House Blend Starbucks has a rich and lively tasting note.
The other day, they also offer merchandise for cheap and I got a starbucks mug for only 35 or around 3$ which they usually cost more. The beans that I got and the mug came inside a box that said, “Enjoy Perfect Cup of Coffee at Home”. I got a house blend and asked for a fine grind since I use my coffee machine instead of a v60 or even french press.
By now, I have tasted plenty of Starbucks beans from their blonde roast to their dark roast. Yet my favorite will be their medium roast. For me, anything within medium roast tastes just enough to get me through the day. The caffeine content is also not too high and not too low although the roast actually is just one of a few markers to determine the caffeine content.
𝓗𝓸𝔀 𝓭𝓸𝓮𝓼 𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓻𝓫𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓼 𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓼𝓮 𝓫𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓭 𝓼𝓶𝓮𝓵𝓵𝓼 𝓵𝓲𝓴𝓮?
Sniffing coffee and determining their aroma based on the flavor wheel has been one of my pastime hobbies. I want to really understand coffee just by its smell. I can tell you as much that it’s not easy especially when presented with similar notes of aroma. I use the flavor wheel from the book “ Home Barista by Simone Egger & Ruby Ashby ORR”. According to their book aroma wheel, there are 3 bigger categories with 9 smaller categorization into 2 more rows of aroma categorization. For instance, House blend from Starbucks has “Brown Sugar; nutty;malt-like;toast” aroma. Meanwhile pike roast has Carbony ;ash;burnt. Eitherway, I still like the pike place aroma more than the house blend aroma. When I smell the aroma of house blend, I can tell that it is going to have some acidic aftertaste which I often don’t like. From the aroma itself, I can tell that this is also often the beans that’s used at starbucks with exception when they tell me that they use Sumatra or sometimes Colombian.
𝓦𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓭𝓸𝓮𝓼 𝓢𝓽𝓪𝓻𝓫𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓼 𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓼𝓮 𝓫𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓭 𝓽𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮 𝓵𝓲𝓴𝓮?
Unlike pike place that has flavor notes of sweet mellow cocoa, house blend falls into sweet acidy with piquant flavor. Sweet in the wheel flavor according to the book has two more categories which are mellow and acidy. When adding stevia into the coffee, it just makes the coffee taste perfect. The same thing when I added a dash of milk, the aftertaste was still apparent. It was coffee with milk instead of milk with coffee.
When it comes to the mug, I was not expecting to get this mug. I always wanted a mug with the simple round starbucks logo. Although I kinda like the shape since I don’t have a mug with a shape like this one.
Overall the feeling of drinking this coffee was that it was energizing. I even think this is better than the breakfast blend that Starbucks has. If I were to rate them, pike place is numero uno, house blend comes second and the breakfast comes third.
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| 𝘔𝘢𝘤 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘺𝘦𝘥 𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘫𝘢. 𝘈 𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴, 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘺. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘫𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘺, 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭, 𝘯𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘴, 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦, 𝘤𝘺𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴. 𝘐𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴. 𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘱𝘷𝘰𝘵𝘦, 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬. 𝘈 𝘳𝘦-𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥. |