From its origins as a wild vine in Central and South America to the thousands of varieties grown around the world today, beans have evolved to be one of the world’s most important and versatile crops. The common bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris) originated as a wild vine in Central and South America.
Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants. Broad beans, also called fava beans, in their wild state the size of a small fingernail, were gathered in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills. In a form improved from naturally occurring types, they were grown in Thailand from the early seventh millennium BCE, predating ceramics.
Probably originating from South America , common beans were unknown in Europe until introduced by early Spanish explorers in the 1500s. They found these beige beans mottled with darker brown widely used as food, and called them painted, or pinto beans.
Exceptions are lentils and cowpeas. The world leader in production of Dry Beans ( Phaseolus spp), is Myanmar (Burma), followed by India and Brazil . In Africa, the most important producer is Tanzania.
The plant that produces the delicious vanilla bean has its origins in Mexico and was kept secret by the native Totonac Indians for centuries. The Totonac Indians were conquered by the Aztecs who kept these glorious vanilla plants to themselves.
What is the history of beans?
Not until the second millennium BCE did cultivated, large-seeded broad beans appear in the Aegean, Iberia and transalpine Europe. In the Iliad (8th century BCE) there is a passing mention of beans and chickpeas cast on the threshing floor. Beans were an important source of protein throughout Old and New World history, and still are today.
You may be thinking “What is the origin of the word’bean’?”
The word “bean” and its Germanic cognates (e. g, German Bohne) have existed in common use in West Germanic languages since before the 12th century, referring to broad beans and other pod-borne seeds.
Why do we blend beans?
Blend Beans uses the versatile textures and natures of contrasting coffee beans to our advantage of creating the best in-home coffee experience for you. Gourmet coffee beans obtain their rich flavor directly from the soil they are grown in, which is why Blend Beans ventures to all sorts of regions to fashion the best possible bean blend .
You may be thinking “Why do we roast the coffee beans in a blend?”
One way to think about this is this allows us to roast to achieve the correct rate of flavour extraction from each coffee going into a blend. This means that when the end user brews the coffee, they get each bean brewing at the correct rate alongside each other, meaning none of the varietals included in a blend end up significantly over-brewed or under-brewed.
Cup each of the coffees separately. Record aroma, fragrance, flavor, acidity, body, and aftertaste. Cup coffees next to each other to determine which coffees augment the flavor of another. Remember that blending coffee beans is an art and there are no clear espresso blending rules.
So, if you are to blend all the beans together before roasting, you may lose certain flavours from some of the beans . Creating a coffee blend is a careful procedure and you can’t simply throw some different coffees together and hope it tastes nice.
What is blending coffee and how does it work?
Blending coffee is a fine art that marries coffee beans from different origins to enhance the best qualities of each. Roasters choose coffees that complement each other with a delicate, matching, say, a coffee with high citrus acidity and light body to one with smooth chocolate notes and full, velvety mouth feel.