Single origin means the coffee in the bag came from one place rather than being mixed from several. What nobody agrees on is how small “one place” has to be.
It can mean one country, which is nearly meaningless — Brazil is the size of a continent. It can mean one region, one co-op, one farm, or one specific plot on one farm. All four get printed as “single origin,” and the term does not distinguish between them. That’s worth knowing before you pay extra for it.
What a blend is, and why it isn’t the enemy
A blend is coffee from several places mixed on purpose. This is not cheating and it is not a lesser product. A good blend is a designed thing — one coffee for sweetness, one for body, one for brightness — and building one that tastes the same in March and in November, as harvests change underneath you, is genuinely hard.
Most espresso you have ever enjoyed was a blend. Most house coffee at a café you like is a blend. The specialty world went through a phase of treating blends as embarrassing, and it was wrong.
So why does single origin cost more?
Partly because it’s harder to buy: smaller lots, less of it, and the roaster can’t swap one component out when the price moves. Partly because it’s traceable, and traceability is work. And partly, honestly, because people will pay more for it.
What you actually get is particularity. A single origin tastes of somewhere. It also changes between harvests, and runs out, and next year’s will be different. That’s the appeal and the inconvenience, and they’re the same feature.
What to actually look for on the bag
A roast date, not a best-before. A place named more specifically than the country. Ideally the variety and how it was processed. And a roaster who will tell you who grew it if you ask — that’s the difference between the two trade labels worth caring about.
If a bag says only “single origin” and a country, you are paying for the phrase.
Where we stand on it
We sell single origin, one lot at a time, because it’s the kind of coffee we like drinking and because a small company buying small amounts can do it honestly. That’s a preference, not a verdict on blends.
What a variety actually is, and why it’s on the bag at all, is the whole of The Lineup— fourteen of them, each pinned to a bit of California so you have something to hang it on.