Our well stocked origin list makes choosing the perfect coffee for a holiday blend easy
The concept of “Holiday Blend” seems hopeless when you look at how it’s been defined by companies like Starbucks and Keurig/Green Mountain and such. It’s a green or red foil bag, a hokey assemblage of current design cliches, something in a cellophane wicker gift basket prepared gawd knows how long ago, and destined to sit around for months more before use. Or in recent years it’s pods, k-cups, or whatever.
It reminds me that I posted an Instagram photo a few years back of “2014 Decaf Holiday Special Reserve” I found in a “free” pile near the dog park I frequent (long after 2014!). Unopened. Obviously there was a lot of love and care radiating from it, as well as the AbCruncher and synthetic wool sweaters in the same heap.
For a big commercial roaster, Holiday Blend is an opportunity for generic branding to move coffee out the door, knowing that people who don’t know each other, or maybe even care at all (ie. office Secret Santa) can buy this as a generic obligation-filler.
On the other hand …
But despite all that (or maybe more as an emphatic and non-cynical response to it), roasters have a great opportunity with doing some sort of Holiday Blend, one that is actually fresh-roasted, done with some level of genuine care, and therefore is not a sucky gift. I mean, the real gift is to take the time to share what you have learned and enjoyed from your home roasting hobby with others!
On our end, it’s a great time to put together a special blend for the holidays because this time of year is when we have our widest selection. At the time of this writing, we have 24 origins stocked on the site, which leaves an abundance of coffee options and flavor profiles to work with.
With that in mind, there’s lots of ideas you can glean about how to present your home roast Holiday Blend (we offer our own ideas below), but what should be IN that little bag or jar you gift away?
Let’s start with the obvious
- It should be something you have roasted, tasted and enjoyed. Nothing means more than sharing something that has really struck you as special.
- Why does it have to be a blend at all? If a single origin coffee we offered has been your lightening rod in a cup, why not gift that? Maybe you don’t need to share every detail with your giftees (do they really care that we graded it as .2 defects per 300 grams?). Maybe its better to spare them the minutiae, as it can be a turn-off for those not touched with coffee geekery bug.
- On the flip side, a blend allows you to create something all your own. You can read our full article on the logic of blending, but in short, blends allow you to do a couple things.
- First, you can do a melange of coffees roasted to different levels. You could do this with a single origin coffee too, but this adds a level of autonomy to your roast results.
- Secondly, you can modify the cup profile of a coffee you might really love (like a very bright Kenya for example) and tone it down a bit to please a broader range of palates, like all those relatives who claim to like all coffee and then think it’s all weird because it doesn’t taste like Maxwell House. Well, not much you can do about that…
A few ideas for holiday blending
- When a commercial shop approaches a Holiday Blend roast, I’ve noticed that they often include some percentage of Kenya, and/or some percentage of Ethiopia. For example one local roaster spelled out their ingredients on the bag as wet process coffees from Guatemala, Ethiopia and Kenya. These Kenya and Ethiopia components add complex aromatics and acidity that many will find exotic, moderated by the dense sweetness afforded by the Guatemalan base ingredient. The roaster keeps their blend ratio a secret (so do we!), but I would bank on 50% Guatemala, and 25% each of Kenya and Ethiopia really lighting up the palate for most people. (check out our Guatemala page for what’s currently available; most of the coffees listed on our Ethiopia and Kenya pages will add ‘highlights’ to your blend)
- As a close alternative to the above, I would look into using a nice Brazilian coffee as a base for a blend, giving a solid underlayment of nut and bittersweet cocoa roast taste. For top note coffees, wet-processed Ethiopias from our list would all do well to add brightness and acidity. Kenyas are great too but can be more aggressive, so I would trim the percentage of those with higher acidity rating.
- Another great idea is to look at Rwanda coffees as 25 to 50% of a blend. These all Bourbon variety coffees add great sweetness to a blend, often accented by berry notes, and more moderate brightness than a Kenya. (Rwanda Rubavu Rwinyoni in particular has the sweetness of a Central American coffee, and also brings subtle top notes to the blend)
- Okay, so what about roasting one of our real 88+ point “top drawer” coffees from other parts of Africa? They are aromatic powerhouses for sure, and both our Ethiopia and Kenya pages are chalk full of 88+ point coffees
Some of our own personal favorites
Armed with a general idea for how to approach your blend, it’s time to select the coffees. (Given that we have 90+ coffees at the moment, that’s easier said than done!) Here are some of our personal favorites based on the origins we’ve listed so far:
- Brazil Dry Process Carlos & Dani – Perfect for body, bittersweet blend base, use as 25% – 50%.
- El Salvador Finca Miravalles Bourbon – Miravalles’ coffees are a go-to espresso blend option for us. Chocolate-nut and creamy mouthfeel make it a great backdrop coffee for those with brighter accents.
- Guatemala Xinabajul Producers – Sweet, moderately bright coffee for a 50% base, or to tone down brighter African coffees.
- Ethiopia Shakiso Wesi – Sweet florals will bring complex aromatics at 25%+.
- Ethiopia Dry Process Buno Dambi Uddo – Fruit forward, but bodied too! Powerful flavors that will come through with as little as 15-20%, but welcome in larger amount.
- Kenya Nyeri Kamoini AB – Snappy citrus notes will add a nice highlight at 20%. We even liked this Kenyan dark-roasted, making it great for a brighter espresso blend.
- Rwanda Rubavu Rwinyoni – This all Bourbon coffee is syrupy sweet, and moderately bright, making it a nice base ingredient alternative to Latin American coffee.
Don’t forget to wrap it
Now that you’ve carefully planned out your blend and are ready to roast, let’s talk about how to package it. After all, nothing says “gift” quite like tying it up with the proverbial “bow”.
The three options in the photo are reusable, and designed to lock in freshness while allowing the roasted coffee to breathe. They’re completely blank slates too, ready to be customized for gift giving. Rubber stamps or just plain old ink pen work great on both the paper bags, and we’ve found white labels to be an effective way of customizing the metal tins.
Our classic tin-tie bags are PLA-lined (plant source lining material), meaning everything is compostable except for the tie. The stand-up pouch in the center of the above photo is constructed with laminated layers of Kraft paper that create a barrier for the coffee, and adorned with a one-way valve, and resealable zipper. Both bags come in 1/2 lb and 1 lb sizes. Alternatively, our 12 ounce coffee tin with degas valve is probably the most reusable of the three, some of our own lasting 15+ years and counting!
These are three of our favorites, but we have a few other roasted coffee storage options too that can be viewed here.
Sweet Maria’s holiday blend options
Hopefully all that we’ve laid out leaves you feeling inspired, and you’re already off looking for the perfect blend ingredients. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed by that prospect (or wanting to conserve your energy for some other holiday endeavor!), we have a few blend options of our own.
First, there’s our annual Polar Expresso Holiday Blend. This is by far our most popular blend of the year, and for good reason. It consists of wet process coffees from Kenya and Rwanda, as well as a nominal amount of a fruity dry process Ethiopia. We’ve blended coffees that work well as both drip coffee and espresso, as well as at a pretty wide roast range. It’s a brightly sweet coffee, that also has a delicious fruited twist!
We also sell a “DIY” Moka Java blend set that includes 2 pound bags of coffee from Ethiopia (dry process) and Java (wet hulled). We pick the coffees, you choose the ratios, but not without guidance. We’ve linked off to an article in our library that will help get you started, but the final outcome is up to you. It’s amazing how many different flavor profiles are possible with just two ingredients!
Lastly, when I try to share coffee with my neighbors, a lot of special requests filter back over time (ingrates!). I get some of, “that coffee was great, we like it darker” (to which I reply, “so does satan.”) Secondly, people ask if I ever have decaf. You can really blow the doors off the barn with some fresh home roasted decaf. I mean, considering what the decaf experience usually consists of (ie. the flavor of steeped brown cardboard) a home roast is a quantum leap up. (Our custom Swiss Water decaf options are sure to impress)
Thanks for reading this -T.O.
Notes: Whatever you do, people will appreciate it because of love and care that goes into a real home-made gift, given the time it takes.
