That’s the goal with this article, is to avoid buying bad coffee. In order to steer clear of coffee you don’t like, you’re going to have to understand the fundamentals of coffee.
Here’s the thing. If you have coffee that you love, be it a coffee roaster or a coffee brand, that’s great! We’re not here to persuade you to stop drinking that. However, part of the joy of coffee is the diversity of flavor. Whatever kind of coffee you’re currently enjoying, keep in mind there’s something else out there that we feel you would enjoy just as much or even more.
The worst feeling is splurging on something new, ready to gamble on a well packaged coffee; only to hate it.
The worst feeling is splurging on something new, ready to gamble on a well packaged coffee; only to hate it.
Buy fresh.
But what does fresh mean? Let’s dig into this: Coffee, after roasting, declines steadily over time. It loses its aromatics. The aromatics of fresh coffee dissipates into the atmosphere and escapes. Coffee develops unpleasant flavors when it goes stale, and it begins to oxidize (oxidation technical explanation).
The combination of these things is what happens when coffee becomes stale.
Keep in mind, from a food safety perspective, it’s safe to drink decades after it’s been roasted. It’s not recommended, but possible. Coffee will be dated in 1 of 2 different ways.
Specialty coffee typically offers a roast date, the date on which the coffee was roasted. This is useful because you’ll know exactly how old the coffee is.
Click below to learn about the 3 main places to buy coffee and the pros & cons of each
Learn how to Decipher What Coffee Companies are Trying to Tell You
Buy coffee from as distinct a location as you can. That might be a single farm. That might be a cooperative of growers.
That might be a region in some cases, but historically coffee was just sold by country of origin.Consider wine connoisseurs, they would be skeptical if a bottle was simply labeled France.
That’s not descriptive enough for them?
Same goes for coffee. You need more geographic information.
Which region of which country is the coffee sourced from?
Just because the coffee is from Guatemala or Colombia, that doesn’t really tell you enough about how it’s going to taste.
There’s large variation within just about every single origin of flavor, of styles. So, knowing what country it’s from isn’t that useful to you.
It’s a little useful, but it’s not that useful. If you can’t tell where in a country a coffee is from, it’s not traceable.
Here’s a little secret.
It costs companies more money to keep the origins hidden. If the coffee is really good, the brand doesn’t want you to know. If the coffee is really bad, they don’t want you to know because that area is known for bad coffee.
There’s no point keeping a coffee that doesn’t taste very good traceable all the way through because it doesn’t have the value necessary to kind of return on that investment.
So that’s why traceability is a nice little shortcut to quality. We don’t want to tell you how much to spend on coffee, but a general rule of thumb is if you’re buying from a reputable roaster you’re generally getting better quality, better-tasting coffee, and more of that money is likely to go back to the producer.
That’s why we are explaining how to buy the best coffee.
If you know a bit about what to look for you’ll make less mistakes when splurging on a new coffee.
Check out our guide to find the best coffee maker for every budget at Target.
Here’s the deal, different countries around the world harvest coffee at different times.
This means that the raw coffees are arriving into consuming countries at different times of the year. Keep in mind, raw coffee lasts longer than roasted coffee.
A roaster may carry a coffee anywhere from a few weeks to 8 months. Classically, roasters would carry a coffee all year round, right? They would have a Guatemalan offering 12 months of the year even though for three, four, sometimes five months, that coffee wasn’t very good because the raw coffee was a bit out of date.
The specialty has embraced seasonality, which means that you may only see coffees from certain origins for 6 months out of the year.
We’re not going to ask you to pay attention to which country is harvesting when or understand shipping dates and all that stuff. However, look to buy from roasters and coffee shops where they advertise seasonal coffee.
If they’re doing that, if they have different products on the shelf quite often, while that can be initially frustrating, it’s actually a good thing.
It means that the raw coffees are nice and fresh, and you’re going to get the best possible experience.
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