How to Buy The Best Coffee Beans

Pour over. French press. Brew duration. Water temperature. You can refine your brewing methods and techniques all you want, but at the end of the day, the coffee beans you use are going to have the biggest effect on flavor. If you’re not buying the best coffee beans possible, you’re cheating yourself out of truly delicious, high-quality coffee.

But choosing the right beans is only half the battle. If you don’t store them properly, they’re going to lose all that awesome flavor before they even make it to the grinder, let alone into your cup. So before you pour good money—and what could’ve been good coffee—down the drain, learn what to look for in your coffee beans, and then what to do with them once you get them home.

Whole Beans

We can never stress this enough. Always buy whole beans. Pre-ground coffee might seem convenient, but you miss out on so much flavor to save so little time. It just isn’t worth it.

Air is the enemy of flavorful, aromatic coffee. You accelerate the oxidation process once you crack the hard outer shell protecting your bean, which means the flavor is muted more quickly. The closer to brewing you grind, the fresher—and more flavorful— your cup of coffee.

Roast Date

It might seem like coffee has an eternal shelf life, but we promise it doesn’t. Sure, you most likely won’t get sick if you make coffee using year-old beans, but it definitely won’t taste as good as if the beans had been fresh.

Once a bean leaves the roasting environment, its chemistry immediately begins to change. The bean begins to release carbon dioxide from the roasting process, a process called degassing.

As the bean degasses, all those lovely oils begin to oxidize, which diminishes the flavor of your bean. Coffee bean freshness is highly subjective, but you generally want to make your coffee between four days and two weeks from the roast date, depending on how you brew.

For example, if you’re a fan of pour over coffee, beans in their first week after roasting are optimal because you’ll get a more brilliant coffee bloom closer to the roast date.

But if you’re looking for a good shot of espresso, you might want to let your beans rest a little longer, around seven to nine days. After that, those older beans will be better for your next cold brew.

Remember, these are just general suggestions. Experiment and go with what tastes best to you.

Roaster Identity

If you’re getting your beans from a local grocer or independent coffee shop, look for who actually roasted the beans. Good roasters can make a name for themselves in the coffee community and beyond. There’s even an annual Good Food Award for the best roasters in the United States.

Roasters have their own individual processes and dedication to their craft, so if the roaster is highlighted on the label, you know you’re likely getting a better bean.

Origin

Altitude, soil chemistry, rainfall, and sunshine all contribute to the flavor of the final coffee bean, so the beans’ origin is an important indicator of how they’ll taste.

Coffee trees thrive along the “Bean Belt,” which is the zone between 25° north and 30° south along the equator. If your bag of coffee or your barista can’t tell you where the coffee was grown, you might want to rethink your choice.

More than 50 countries produce coffee, but you may want to start with some of the more famous regions, and get to know their flavor profiles before moving on to more exotic varieties.

• Hawaii: Named for the largest city on the Big Island, Kona coffee is the most sought-after type of Hawaiian coffee. Between intense sunlight and frequent rain showers, the coffee has a rich flavor and moderate floral aromatics.
• Colombia: The care and attention from thousands of small family farms contribute to consistently mild coffee with well-balanced acidity, caramel sweetness, and occasional notes of nuttiness.
• Brazil: Thanks to the vast countryside with a variety of altitudes, Brazilian coffee has a wider palette of flavors. Most often they’re associated with peanut and a heavy body, which is perfect for espresso. It’s also the kind of coffee that tends to linger in your mouth—but in a good way.
• Ethiopia: Home of the apocryphal story about the discovery of coffee, Ethiopia offers massive coffee biodiversity. Between the wild and uncatalogued varieties of coffee and the different processing methods, you can expect more fruity, heavy, wine-like coffees alongside floral, tea-like brews.
• Kenya: Most of the coffee is grown without shade and processed using a fermentation soak. This gives Kenyan coffees savory-sweet flavors like tomato and black currant that may sometimes pucker your lips.
• Indonesia: If you’re wondering why we brought up Indonesia, does Sumatran coffee ring a bell? How about Java? The country is known for these varieties, as well as aged coffees that have a deeper body and lower acidity

·        Between wildly different climates and processing techniques, exploring coffee flavors by region can be a huge treat. Even if you already have a favorite or two, we recommend branching out occasionally to discover something new.

·        Fair Trade

·        In the world of food labeling, Fair Trade is an amorphous description that means … well, it depends on whom you ask. You’ve probably seen a variety of competing fair trade labels on packages of coffee and other products. If this is an important consideration for you, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the better-known labels and what they mean.

·        Fairtrade International is on a mission to promote fairer trade conditions for disadvantaged producers to help improve their economic conditions.

·        Essentially, they believe the world’s poorest producers can have sustainable development if trade is transparent and better organized. They have a third-party inspection organization, FLO-CERT, which regularly audits products with the Fairtrade International label.

·        Fair Trade Certified, formerly TransFair and formerly formerly a member of Fairtrade International, this is a nonprofit organization based in the United States. They partnered with Fairtrade until 2011, when both groups stated that while they share common beliefs, they had different perspectives on how to best achieve their goals.

·        Fair Trade Certified is open to producers of all income levels, rather than just the poorest of the poor. Their mission is to promote development and empower communities through a sustainable and socially conscious trade model that benefits everyone involved, from the farmer to the consumer.