Blond flakes in espresso grounds My wife bought espresso beans for baking chocolate muffins (Unicorn Blood, chosen because of the cute label), so we ended up with most of a bag to be used for drip.
When I grind the beans, there are blond flakes in the grind, as if someone dusted the grounds and kitchen counter with the remains at the bottom of a Corn Flakes box. The whole beans look uniformly dark.
What causes the blond highlights in the grounds? Are they associated with a different taste or condition of the beans?  (The coffee I've made with the beans tastes dark, a bit malty or woody, like chicory, but not bitter.)
I think you're talking about coffee bean chaff, it's pictured after roasting in this blog. These are blonde flakes the come off the beans during the roasting process. In most commercially sold coffee I've seen, the chaff has been removed. When I roasted my own coffee I didn't bother because it's not so easy to separate them from the beans and they are harmless (at least for brewing).
In your case, it seems some of the chaff was still stuck on the beans after roasting, but it came off when grinding the beans. I wouldn't worry about it too much for brewing coffee, but if you want to use the ground beans in another dish, it might be better to use a sieve to strain the chaff.