I happen to work part time in a place where the espresso blend is ridiculously simple in its composition and by virtue of the beans used is extremely consistent. It cuts through milk well and for that reason is successful in the retail drink operation (less than 1/2 % of our espresso is served as straight shots or machiatto’s - that is not a typo). But our espresso blend is not so great when consumed as straight espresso and it never achieves greatness - never has and never will.

I create espresso blends for myself, cost no object, new and unique every 6 months or so. I incorporate the neatest coffees I can find for these. But I also want some conistent coffees to work with. My plaint all last year has been not finding a creamy milk chocolate Brasil — isn’t that the way they are supposed to taste? Who told the top Facendas we wanted pulped natural, overly acidic, yellow Bourbon designer beans? Not me, I like my fruit from Africa, if you please.

In order for each level of the supply chain to do its own creative thing, it needs some consistency from the level directly beneath it. The materials each level uses has to work like they are supposed to. A Barista may have trouble doing their magic if the blend gets creatively varied week in and week out by the roaster.

On the other hand, consistency in an agricultural product means deliberately not buying the best, but sticking to an average that can be repeated in good seasons and bad. Not using the best inputs may mean not getting the best output.

So there’s a balance, not for financial reasons, but even to get the very best cup or shot.

I expect barista competitons to shed some light on this. Here we have the equivalent of Formula 1 racing — cost no object, just produce the best shot possible. The blends that seem to place high in these are shaping up as made with relationship coffees — where the roaster goes down to the grower and gets a made to order, super high quality product. This may end up being the key to the consistency versus quality tradeoff. At the moment thee coffees are the province of the somewhat larger specialty roasters. But I can imagine a few years down the line, groups of smaller roasters (like the Seattle cafes) coming together to get an improter to supply coffees of this caliber.

I’ve been trying to formulate some words to answer an underlying current or question in some of the portafilter.net threads regarding blends, consistencies and “is consistency = mediocrity”. I still don’t think I have the words I want to say, but I’ll give it a stab.

We have, to simplify things, three tiers of coffee roasters. The largest by far are the Big Fours of the world, who blend for one reason, and one reason only - to get the cheapest brew of coffee they can. They’re not in this discussion, but I needed to point them out.

The second tier is the company that buys stuff better than C grade (maybe only slightly better in some cases); who consider themselves specialty coffee, but their #1 clientele are restaurants, hotels and cafes, probably in that order.

What does that customer base want? Price first, then consistency. I don’t even think they care much about quality, other than they don’t want a blend that smells like burning rubber. They do, however, want something that is “coffee tasting”; and considering most of the buyers for these industries probably cut their chops on Maxwell House or Folgers, well, we know what “coffee tasting” is to them.

So this second tier, who are specialty coffee roasters, doing anywhere from 50,000 lbs a year to a million or more, what will they do? In the design community, we often talk about “selling one’s soul”. I have seen it go on in the coffee industry, in spades. Here’s the scenario: Start up a roastery. Lofty goals. Maybe even cup more than once a month. Quality Quality Quality. Get a few contracts. Sell based on the contracts. But not enough selling. Go for more clients, which is, you guessed it, the restaurant / hotel / low end cafe business. Find out like a hammer blow to the head that by and large, they don’t give two sh*ts about quality - price is the most important thing. “XYZ Roaster is talking to us about coffee he can get to us for $5 a lb wholesale. Can you beat that?” and lower and lower (no, I don’t have a lot of respect for the restaurant industry. I know it’s a tough market to succeed in, but as a core industry group, I’ve never seen more nickle and diming in my life).

Roaster with lofty goals has to start making decisions. Am I about quality or am I about putting food on the table.

Food looks good. So he or she starts tinkering with the blend. Starts not so much worrying about highlighting blueberry notes in their signature blend, but instead, how much C grade colombian can I squeeze in there, and still maintain a neutral taste from it?

Alas, we’re now on the road to engineered mediocrity… consistent mediocrity, but mediocrity nonetheless.

As for the third tier of roaster. Rare breed. Counter Culture may be part of it. Vic is definitely part of it. Both are totally different in terms of market share, but they keep the eye on quality, not foresaking it for pricing or keeping a blend neutral, bland, “coffee tasting” in order to sell more of it to wholesale clients.

I will not mention names here, but I know, just off the top of my head, four roasters, varying in size from 150,000 lbs a year to 500,000 lbs a year who used to be in the third tier, but have slipped terribly into the second tier. One, when asked about how their “signature espresso blend” has slipped in terms of quality and uniqueness by a client stated after pulling a sample shot or two with said client (and I’m nearly directly quoting) “At least it’s still better than Starbucks”.

This is where striving for a consistent taste morphs into more bland flavours, more bland, neutral “coffee taste”. A blend designed to still show a profit, but appease a massive market. A blend not to offend, but a blend to also not win awards, and cause pleasantly surprised reactions.

As regards the Victrola Streamline, I think Chris and the other Vickies would agree that it has a particular flavor profile that we aim to achieve from day to day, month to month. There are certain “signature” qualities we aim for, but the nature of coffee requires us to adapt the blend based on what our coffees are showing. We’ve recently moved into new crop natural Ethiopian Harrar for one example and this has made a noticeable (positive) change to the blend for anyone with a reasonably experienced palate.

The solution pointed to by you and some of the folks on portafilter.net thread is to eschew branding for these potentially slightly more volatile blends. Personally, I’m not a fan of branding whether its artisan coffee or Burning Man theme camps. I think the power of brands have grown dilute and blunted on account of branding saturation. Branding as an idea has almost become a sick kind of american folk art. I think the deeper differentiation that real artisan coffee needs to separate itself from the stale grocery store run-of-the-Millstone will require something more sophisticated and perhaps antithetical to branding.

The luxury of Victrola is that we are still our own biggest customer for espresso and our small coterie of wholesale clients are with us because of our artisan focus. Our Streamline blend is optimized for the best possible cup quality with less regard for the fault tolerance required by larger wholesale roasters.

I sort of felt this post was only half finished, as others (particularly Peter G, blogging from Kenya!) have made some really smart comments in that thread. But I blogged… about something other than wifi. So refreshing.

Just as a footnote of legal history, the main rationale for granting protection to trademarks is to protect the consumer, not the vendor. The mark is supposed to stand for something that will meet the consumer’s expectations. In fact, trademark rights can be lost, if the owner fails to maintain quality controls. But, I digress….

There is a solution. Customers of artisan coffee roasters aren’t stupid. They will understand if you explain that coffee is an agricultural product and subject to seasonal variations. Just let them know which of your blends are aimed at consistency and which are not. I would humbly suggest that the inconsistent blends be given short-term, disposable names, such as “Tony’s Summer Blend 2005,” while you aim for consistency in your hallmark blends.