The Great Debate
Walk into any specialty coffee shop and you'll face a choice: single-origin or blend? It's a question that can feel loaded with judgment—as if choosing one says something about your coffee credentials. The truth is simpler and more interesting: both approaches have genuine merit, and understanding when each excels will help you drink better coffee.
What is Single-Origin Coffee?
Single-origin coffee comes from one geographic location. That location might be as broad as a country (Ethiopian coffee) or as specific as a single farm or even a particular lot within that farm (Hacienda La Esmeralda, Jaramillo lot).
The appeal of single-origin is transparency and terroir. When you drink a washed Ethiopian from Yirgacheffe, you're tasting what that specific place, climate, soil, and tradition produces. Nothing masks or modifies the coffee's inherent character. It's coffee as a window into somewhere else.
Single-origins also enable traceability. You can know exactly where your coffee was grown, often down to the producer's name and the specific varietal. This transparency supports better prices for farmers and allows roasters to build direct relationships with the people growing their coffee.
What is a Blend?
A blend combines coffees from multiple origins—sometimes two, sometimes a dozen. The roaster selects each component for what it contributes to the whole: one coffee might provide body, another brightness, a third sweetness or complexity.
Blending is an art form with centuries of tradition. The goal isn't to obscure individual coffees but to create something greater than the sum of its parts—a cup with balance and depth that no single origin could achieve alone.
The Case for Single-Origins
Distinctive Character
Single-origins let individual coffees speak for themselves. A natural processed Ethiopian might explode with blueberry and wine notes. A washed Guatemalan from Antigua might offer refined chocolate and stone fruit. These distinctive profiles get diluted in blends.
Education and Exploration
If you want to understand what makes Colombian coffee different from Kenyan, or how natural processing changes a cup, single-origins are your classroom. Each bag teaches you something about coffee's incredible diversity.
Seasonality and Freshness
Coffee is an agricultural product with harvest seasons. Single-origins celebrate this seasonality—you drink Ethiopian coffee when it's fresh from that year's harvest, then move to Central American coffees as those harvests arrive. This rotation keeps your coffee at peak freshness.
Transparency and Relationships
Single-origins enable direct trade relationships. When a roaster sources the same farm's coffee year after year, they can invest in that relationship—providing feedback, paying premiums for quality, and supporting sustainable practices. This traceability often translates to better outcomes for producers.
The Case for Blends
Consistency
A well-designed blend tastes the same year-round. As one component's harvest ends, roasters swap in a similar coffee to maintain the profile. For cafes serving hundreds of lattes daily, or for home brewers who want their morning cup predictable, this consistency matters.
Balance and Complexity
Some flavor profiles are simply impossible to achieve with a single coffee. Want a cup with Ethiopian florals, Brazilian chocolate body, and Central American citrus brightness? That requires blending. Master blenders create cups that are simultaneously sweet, complex, and balanced in ways single-origins rarely achieve.
Espresso Performance
Espresso is demanding. The brewing method amplifies every characteristic—both good and bad. Many single-origins that taste beautiful as pour-over become unbalanced or harsh as espresso. Blends designed for espresso can combine a sweet, full-bodied base with brighter coffees that add interest without overwhelming acidity.
Milk Drinks
A delicate, tea-like Ethiopian might disappear beneath steamed milk. Blends designed for lattes and cappuccinos often emphasize chocolate, caramel, and nut notes that complement dairy rather than competing with it. The assertive body of a well-crafted blend cuts through milk to deliver flavor.
Approachability
Not every cup needs to be an adventure. Sometimes you want coffee that tastes like really good coffee—sweet, balanced, and familiar. A thoughtfully crafted house blend offers reliability without demanding attention.
When to Choose Which
Choose single-origin when you want to explore, learn, or experience something distinctive. Brew it as pour-over, French press, or any method that lets you appreciate nuance. Pay attention as it cools—single-origins often reveal new dimensions at different temperatures.
Choose a blend when you want consistency, when you're making espresso-based drinks, or when you want something reliably delicious without surprises. A great blend is a roaster's signature—proof of their craft in combining coffees harmoniously.
The Quality Question
Here's the uncomfortable truth that specialty coffee sometimes dances around: historically, blending was often used to hide inferior coffee. Commodity roasters would stretch a small amount of decent coffee with cheaper, lower-quality lots.
That legacy gives blends an undeserved reputation in some specialty circles. But intention matters. A blend created to mask defects is very different from a blend designed to achieve a specific, excellent flavor profile. The best specialty roasters blend up—combining quality coffees that complement each other.
Judge blends by their taste, not their category. A thoughtfully crafted blend from a quality-focused roaster can absolutely compete with single-origins for depth and interest.
Our Approach
At Waymark, we focus primarily on single-origins because we love showcasing what specific places and producers create. Each coffee tells a story, and we want you to taste that story clearly.
That said, we're not ideological about it. The right tool for the right job. When we develop an espresso blend, it's because we believe that particular combination creates the best possible shot—not because we're compromising.
Asking whether single-origins or blends are better is like asking whether solos or symphonies are better music. Both can be extraordinary. Both can be mediocre. What matters is the skill and intention behind them.