"This coffee is perfect for you and tastes the best." You'll never read a sentence like that from me. Because taste is individual. We might even enjoy different coffee drinks.
This article is designed to help you figure out which coffees and coffee beans are right for YOU.
With the 9 decision tips in these articles, you can discover your taste preferences and make the right choice in front of the coffee shelf.
Unfortunately, you only find out in your cup whether you really like a coffee. But if you follow these tips, you'll always get closer to your favorite coffees.
1. Your coffee drinker type: Espresso, Mocha, or Filter?
If you're absolutely sure you're an espresso type or filter coffee drinker, you can skip directly to the section "Which coffee for espresso?" But it might also be interesting for you to find out why your guests always want espresso or filter coffee when they visit you. Because it might have something to do with you.
Every coffee drink can be good! The question is, when do you want to drink your coffee and what should it do?
The short espresso is drunk at the end of a meal or al volo , meaning on the fly. The perfect quick pleasure with concentrated caffeine and flavor. One sip and it's gone! Espresso is many things, but not a good socializer. The retention time in the cup is simply too short.
If you're on an afternoon date at a café with your dream partner and they order an espresso, you might get nervous. If the order is filter coffee or Latte Macchiato, that's quite promising. Both are the longest drinks in the coffee world and perfect conversation companions.
Remember: Do you want to drink coffee long and comfortably?
Then filter coffees, café crema, or espresso-milk drinks like Latte Macchiato or Cappuccino are suitable. Espresso is the perfect quick drink.
The amount of the drink is contrasted with the strength. The smaller a drink is, the higher the concentration. All drinks have roughly the same amount of caffeine and other flavors that make coffee what it is. What matters is the amount of coffee used, not so much the concentration of coffee particles. From 9g of coffee beans, you always extract roughly the same amount—whether the drink is 25ml espresso or 150ml filter coffee.
The concentration of coffee particles is mainly important for mouthfeel. The more concentrated a coffee is, the thicker the drink. A strong espresso feels heavy and creamy in the mouth.
At the same time, you experience a flavor explosion because the concentrated coffee powder is diluted with only about 25ml of water. It consists of about 7–10% dissolved coffee particles and accordingly 90–93% water.
Filter coffee is at the other end of the scale. It has only 1.0–1.5% dissolved coffee particles and 98.5–99% is water. It's tea-like in consistency and feels soft and light in the mouth. The flavor is more "spread out" compared to espresso, not so explosive. This gives you more time to discover different flavor notes in filter coffee.
Important: Just because of the concentration: Filter coffee is more forgiving! If you brew an espresso from a bitter or sour coffee, you'll taste it 10 times stronger in the espresso. Because it's up to 10 times more concentrated.
Are you more of an espresso person or more of a filter coffee person? Or are you in the middle, with café crème or Americano? Remember where you fall on this spectrum. Because that's crucial for choosing your coffee beans.
2. Light, medium, or dark roasted?
Before choosing beans, it's worth determining whether lighter or darker roasts suit you better. Depending on that, it may not matter as much in the choice of coffee beans in terms of taste.
Basically, the lighter a roaster roasts their coffees, the more you taste the coffee bean itself. The darker coffee is roasted, the more the flavor notes converge. Darkly roasted coffees taste increasingly roasty with longer roasting time. Lightly roasted coffees remind you that coffee itself is a fruit.
The higher quality a coffee is, the more complex it is, and this shows more clearly in the light roasted state. But even the most complex flavor notes are reduced when a roast becomes very dark. Roasting is a process that initially transforms coffee chemically and then "burns" increasingly more substance. In the end, ashy and burnt notes remain.
The spectrum of coffee taste ranges from fruity—sweet—chocolatey—to roasty. If you're interested in fruity notes, you should try lighter roasts. If you prefer roasty notes, go for dark coffee. The area between the two extremes is recommended for adventurous coffee drinkers from both camps.
Roasting light is just as much a master discipline for roasters as precisely dark roasting to the point. Roasts that are too light are "underdeveloped," tasting grassy and grainy. With dark roasts, significantly more smoke is produced. The coffee should taste as little like that as possible. Bread-like flavor notes develop if insufficient energy is added to the roaster during longer roasts. This phenomenon, called "baking," is considered a roasting defect.
The art is therefore to master the extremes of roasting in the light or darker range, or to combine both in medium roasts.
Remember: The darker coffee is roasted, the less you taste the diverse flavor notes of high-quality raw coffees. The lighter coffee is roasted, the more clearly you can tell whether the raw coffee is not good and might even have off-flavors. Roasteries that buy lower-quality coffee will never roast it light but will "hide" it behind the roast.
The roasting topic is very complex and presented here in brief form.
3. Coffee beans for your happiness: Arabica or Robusta
Coffea Arabica is the more widespread coffee species and naturally higher quality. Coffea Canephora is the counterpart to Arabica and is generally called Robusta. Both species in turn consist of many subspecies and also occur as hybrids. The two siblings of the Coffea family couldn't be more different. They have fundamentally different flavor profiles and their caffeine content varies.
Because they belong to the same family, the unequal pair is regularly viewed from one perspective. However, this viewpoint does justice to neither, and it has particularly blocked Robusta's quality development for a long time.
The flavor profile of Canephora is strong, earthy, and full-bodied. Due to higher chlorogenic acid and double the caffeine content, Canephora is more bitter. Due to the pronounced bitterness, the acidity and sweetness of Canephoras come across less, resulting in limited flavor complexity in the cup. And here's the rub. Based on these fundamentals, Canephora cultivation was sometimes handled significantly less carefully over decades. This reinforced the earthy-bitter flavor profile through off-notes and irregularities, which also led to a generally lower price for Canephoras at the coffee exchange. Historically, Canephora takes a role in coffee blends as a strong-powerful component. With a compact crema, Canephora became the standard for many cheap espresso blends. Particularly in southern Italian espresso blends, but also in many instant coffees, a lot of Robusta is used.
Arabica has diverse aromatics, relatively little perceived bitterness, and more pronounced fine acidity. When Arabica is cultivated in high altitudes and processed cleanly, enormous complexity develops. This natural flavor foundation of Arabica varieties meant that Arabica was further refined for quality. A rating profile attuned to Arabica supported this development. The term "specialty coffee" today targets exclusively Arabica coffees.
Wanting to compare Arabica and Canephora is like putting a pear next to an apple. You won't do justice to either. So it's all the more gratifying that increasingly more producers and producing countries focus on producing high-quality Canephoras. Uganda is a pioneer, leading the development of a rating sheet oriented to Canephora. This so-called "fine Cup Standard" will play an increasingly important role in the future. Not only because it's improving, but also because as the climate changes, Arabica cultivation areas will shrink and Robusta cultivation areas will expand.
When does Robusta make sense?
Robusta is perfect for anyone who likes really strong coffees. With lots of punch, caffeine, and a thick crema. Robusta is standard in strong Italian blends. If you like coffee-milk drinks like Cappuccino or Latte Macchiato, Robusta is a strong option. Robusta's own flavor is strong enough not to be overpowered by milk.
When does Arabica make sense?
With its complexity and naturally present acidity, many Arabicas are excellent filter coffees. Particularly varieties grown at high altitudes, harvested when fully ripe and processed precisely, are interesting to discover in terms of flavor. The flavor diversity of Arabicas is enormous, so for every drink and every taste, you can find an Arabica variety or processing method. Arabicas can also be used for espresso roasts and blends. They come as single-origin or blended. The experiments are limitless here.
4. Which coffee for filter coffee and French Press?
The French Press fits into the range of various filter and brewing methods. Flavor-wise, the same coffee that works for French Press, also called a plunger pot, is suitable for classic filter methods like the Melitta filter, Hario V60 filter, or other hand filters.
Filter coffee is relatively less strong than espresso. It has a concentration of dissolved coffee particles of approximately 1.2 to 1.5%. At this concentration, almost all flavor directions are "moderate." Rather bitter coffees are equally only mildly concentrated and therefore mildly bitter, as coffees with more pronounced fruity acids.
From this perspective, everything is possible in the realm of filter coffee, and it's up to your own taste. Personally, I recommend lighter roasted coffees for filter coffees, where roast notes stay in the background. Filter coffee is excellent for exploring the different flavor notes of various coffee regions. Depending on the region, coffees from Kenya or Ethiopia already have very different tastes within a country. The difference to coffees from Central America or Papua New Guinea is even much greater.
Coffees brewed as filter are perfect for exploring coffee diversity. Therefore, I recommend: try it.
Here are some flavor pointers:
- Kenyan coffees often taste of red berries and are my favorite coffees for Cold Brew.
- Ethiopian, naturally processed coffees are often floral and have notes of blueberries.
- Coffees from Dipilto in Nicaragua taste strongly of chocolate.
- The Blue Batak from Sumatra has notes of licorice.
- Brazilian coffees often have nougat-chocolate notes.
A coffee's flavor depends heavily on the region, the variety, and the way it's harvested and processed. Therefore, these mentioned flavor directions are very general. There are also Brazilian coffees from individual farms that taste completely different.
Filter coffees from very good roasteries
So many roasteries roast good filter coffees, so any list falls short. And as described above, it also depends heavily on which roasting philosophy appeals to you most. I personally drink filter coffees most in the light to medium roasted spectrum. To discover outstanding filter coffees in the German-speaking market, I founded the Coffee Panel with Sensory World Champion Gloria Pedroza. We taste filter coffees and crown the winners. Our own filter coffees can be found here.
5. Which coffee for espresso?
Besides Turkish coffee, espresso is the strongest drink in the coffee universe. In numbers, that means: around 7–10% concentrated coffee particles in relation to 90–93% water. What comes together on 20 to 30 milliliters is the full coffee charge. Precisely for this reason, the internal balance of the coffee before and after brewing plays such a big role. At this concentration, anything unpleasant is potentiated—not tasty. Conveniently, the opposite is also true. What's delicious is very delicious!
Therefore, choosing your coffee requires just as much care as with filter coffee. And above all, "acidity" is to be enjoyed with caution. Important: Acidity is crucial for complexity in every high-quality delicacy. A wine without acidity or chocolate without acidity tastes bland and boring. Coffee is similar. The challenge is to balance this acidity with the other attributes, so in balance with sweetness, bitterness, and mouthfeel.
The roast plays an important role here, as does extraction. Because with coffee, unlike wine, it's not just about buying a good product. It must first be prepared. If you manage to balance a pronounced acidity, the espresso is pretty much guaranteed to be grand. The preparation isn't difficult and is easy to learn, but does require a certain care.
Therefore, I recommend choosing longer developed, i.e., more darkly roasted coffees for espresso. It's then easier to extract them properly in the brewing.
If you feel confident, you can try anything. Often a coffee package says: "for espresso" or "crema beans." This refers to the way the coffee is roasted. There are no "crema beans" or "espresso beans." It depends solely on how a coffee has been roasted and whether it's suitable for a drink with this roast. The roasting philosophy of the roaster also plays a role. For example, from roasters who roast rather dark, I use "filter coffee" as espresso because it still seems balanced to me as an espresso.
What espresso type are you?
Do you swear by "Italian roasts"? Then the Robusta content probably plays a big role and you like the bitterness of the rather dark roast. These roasts are also roasted by roasters in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. You don't need to grab an Italian package with a brand name. Many local roasters deliver "Italian profiles." Once more: the key terms are "dark," "strong," and often "Robusta content."
If the espresso still doesn't taste like it does in Italy or doesn't radiate the atmosphere of the Italian barista, then it's either due to the brewing method, drink length, or your lack of vacation mood. I claim that espresso Italian-style tastes so good because we're on the way to vacation AND because the shots are much shorter and punchier. In Italy, we typically drink 15–18ml espresso. If 7–8 grams of coffee are used for that, then it's really strong and especially thick. If there's also a Robusta content, the spoon almost stands in the crema.
If we drink 40ml espressos from the super-automatic in Switzerland, that's more similar to a café crème than this concentrated dark espresso. By the way, southern Italy and northern Italy also differ quite a bit. The further south, the higher the Robusta content.
The opposite of Italian espresso, which convinces through strength and bitterness, is the slightly longer, more balanced espresso. Besides coffee selection, the brew ratio plays a big role. How many grams of coffee are dosed into the portafilter and how much is brewed into the cup?
I personally like to brew with a ratio of 1:2.5, for example 9 grams in the portafilter and 22.5 grams in the cup. With some coffees, I also like a ratio of 1:3, so 9 grams in the portafilter and 27 grams in the cup.
How capsule coffee changed espresso drinkers
If you brew espresso with a ratio of 1:2 or 1:2.5 and your guests think it's "too strong," you're probably dealing with capsule coffee drinkers. It's remarkable how much capsule coffee consumption has already changed our beverage and coffee habits.
In a capsule, regardless of manufacturer, there are typically only about 5 to 5.5 grams of coffee. But the typical capsule machine dispenses a "typical drink amount" into the cup, so 25ml and more. Many capsule machines brew 35 milliliters of "espresso" as standard. The brew ratio is then effectively 1:6, and the strength of the coffee deviates significantly from a "classic" espresso. That has about 7–10% dissolved coffee particles. Capsule espresso only achieves 3–5% dissolved coffee particles.
This makes it more similar to an Americano or café crème than a real espresso. If you drink "espresso" like this often, you get used to this flavor profile and are initially overwhelmed by an espresso from a portafilter machine with a 1:2.5 ratio.
Espresso from very good roasteries
Some very fine espressos have recently been in my grinder. I particularly liked coffees from Adrianos (CH), Röstbar (DE), Stoll Kaffee (CH), Wildkaffee (DE), Rösterei Vier (DE), Flying Roasters (DE), Felix Kaffee (AT). This is not a complete list, but a loose compilation of very good roasteries from which I could recently taste coffees. Our own espresso roasts can be found here. You'll find an excellent overview with a comparison of various coffee beans in the blog post by Coffeeness.
6. Reading coffee labels correctly and what you shouldn't buy
The imaginative stringing together of empty phrases reaches its peak on coffee packaging. Very often, the advertised refined crown with gentle handcrafted long-term roasting is an artful circumlocution for cheap commodity coffee without origin information.
When reading labels, I recommend a radical approach. Look for precision, especially in the supermarket. If you don't find any, that's already a clue to the likely quality. The rule is: the more on a package, the more the roaster knows about the coffee or is willing to share this information, and the higher the likelihood of better quality.
When looking at coffee labels, the analogy to wine is helpful. When a wine says "red wine" on it, we know we've arrived at the cheapest and lowest quality shelf. Coffee that's labeled with "Robusta" or "Arabica" falls into this category.
If you find information about the country of origin on the bottle, we're slowly moving toward better quality. But honestly—who buys a wine with the blanket label "from France" wanting to create an elegant tasting experience? They want to get drunk and knowingly accept the programmed headache the next day.
What's on the packaging of a high-quality coffee?
Recommended minimum standard:
The roast date: the date when the coffee was roasted. Only when the roast date is known can it be determined whether the coffee is fresh or old. After two months, a noticeable decline in taste quality begins for whole bean coffees.
Origin information: Country, region, producer/cooperative/processing facility. For some regions, DOC certifications are available, meaning verified origin seals.
Composition: whether it's a single-origin coffee or a blend. In the case of a blend, the mixing ratio of Arabica/Robusta should be stated and origin information adjusted accordingly.
Exemplary label text on a coffee bag:
Processing information: were the coffees washed or naturally processed or experimentally processed.
Varieties: which varieties or cultivars of Arabica/Canephora is it.
Refinement of origin information: not necessary, but interesting are lot number/name and altitude information.
Additional info: some roasteries provide the raw coffee purchase price or information about the roasting. That's exemplary and stands for a new way of communicating with the consumer. More information on this in our article on transparency.
Fairtrade and organic seals say nothing about a coffee's quality by themselves. However, they are an indication that premiums and a minimum price were paid for these coffees.
Which coffees to buy then?
I recommend being radical here. If the minimum information isn't provided, I wouldn't buy and try that coffee. The probability of missing something good is very low. Presumably, many bargains also won't be available then. But they mostly convince more with price than quality.
Minimum information is not difficult for a roaster to obtain and provide if they buy high-quality coffees. The excuse that no "business secrets" or "special blends" should be revealed is nonsense. Roasteries that win significant international roasting competitions publish their roasting curves and blends openly.
Secrecy is misplaced here. Industrial roasteries buy the same standard coffees and remix them in very similar ratios. Hiding behind secret blend recipes or origins is a fig leaf over inferior coffee qualities.
If I have the minimum info, will the coffee taste good?
Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that you'll like a coffee that lists minimum information on the packaging. It must be tried and tested each time. With each bag of coffee, however, you'll notice whether the direction and roasting philosophy of a roaster suits you. Try to describe as precisely as possible whether coffees taste too bitter or sour, too smoky, or mild.
Bitterness and acidity are often confused sensorially. Train yourself by biting into a lemon as a reference for acidity and remember well how the acidity behaves in your mouth. A pattern for bitterness is, for example, gentian or also the artichoke. Store these references mentally and test the coffee.
If you can rule out that bitterness or acidity comes from extraction, describe your taste experience to the roaster. Maybe he has a suggestion for you that tastes less like what you find unpleasant. If you can't get on the same page with this roaster, try another.
Taste and cup coffees
Coffee cupping is an excellent way to try different coffees side by side. When these are prepared by roasters or coffee professionals, it also rules out that you've done something wrong yourself.
So take advantage of every coffee tasting in your region as an opportunity to learn more about coffee and fill your own taste database. Many roasteries hold regular tastings. Coffee festivals are also a good chance to taste coffees from different regions directly next to each other.
Guided and accompanied learning is also possible in sensory courses. We ourselves conduct sensory courses in our academy, but also come to you or taste at team and corporate events.
7. Which coffee is healthy and digestible?
Coffee is neither explicitly healthy nor unhealthy. It has both health-promoting effects and problematic effects, especially when consumed in large quantities. "5 cups of about 150ml each" is often cited as a reference. The truth is actually a bit more complicated and depends on many factors—not least your own physical condition.
We spoke with Professor Chahan Yeretzian about the topic of coffee and health consequences.
At the same time, there are potentially carcinogenic substances in coffee that, while not proven to be carcinogenic in coffee itself, are known to be carcinogenic. We produced a video in English about furan and acrylamides and will write another article here.
Digestibility of coffee
How well a coffee is tolerated depends closely on its quality and processing. It should not be forgotten that coffee is the seed of a fruit. With other fruits too, unpleasant side effects occur when they're eaten underripe or overripe. It's similar with coffee.
High-quality coffee is harvested selectively. The picker typically has to walk through the bushes three times within a few weeks to harvest the deep red or dark yellow cherries. Coffee cherries don't ripen together on a plant. This type of harvest is very labor-intensive and correspondingly costly. That's why it's omitted in the production of cheap coffees. Instead of picking cherries individually, the coffee is stripped by hand or even harvested mechanically.
Such unequal ripeness stages of coffee cherries create several follow-up problems. They ferment differently—if they're fermented at all. These beans dry differently and behave differently during roasting. The roast level is therefore not uniform, the taste differs, and digestibility is altered. Very often, such beans are the decisive digestibility problem.
The speed and duration of roasting also affects digestibility. But that's again its own big topic involving furan and acrylamides. You'll do well with coffees that are roasted neither too quickly nor too light, nor too dark and for too long. We'll address this topic in our article series on roasting, which is at the top of our list of articles to write.
8. The best coffee is freshly ground
Even with the best coffee and roast right for you, the final step to perfect coffee hasn't been taken yet. It's missing fresh grinding. And by fresh, I mean shortly before you brew. As long as coffee isn't ground, coffee protects itself through its own protective layer. It's not easy for oxygen to penetrate into the interior of the coffee. But as soon as the coffee is ground, its surface area increases many times over. From one bean come thousands of particles that, on one hand, release aroma compounds into the air and on the other hand are spread out accessible to oxygen.
At this moment, an accelerated aging process begins. Within 20 minutes, even an untrained palate can taste the difference between freshly ground and ground 20 minutes ago.
What we now lose is not the base taste of the coffee. The coffee still tastes like coffee. But it doesn't taste complex, surprising, alive anymore—just like coffee. Extend the waiting time and coffee soon tastes rancid as fats begin to oxidize. By then, it's definitely not tasty.
Fresh and self-grinding is recommended for one more reason. Only this way can the grind size be adapted to your own needs and your own brewing method. The grind size sets the resistance of the coffee in the cake. This constantly needs adjusting, from day to day and coffee to coffee.
Therefore: anyone wanting to improve coffee quality with simple means should first switch from pre-ground to freshly self-ground. This is also possible "cheaply." We've tested 14 hand mills suitable for filter coffee and some for espresso.
And for the record: whoever buys pre-ground has no control whatsoever over the optical quality of coffee beans. Therefore, coffee that's industrially packaged as ground coffee often uses lower raw coffee quality than the same coffee or brand as whole beans.
9. The best coffee in the world
And what about this cat coffee? What's it called again? Oh yes, Kopi Luwak. And Jamaica Blue Mountain? And Monsooned Malabar?
These three coffees have something in common. Good stories and successful marketing. They've been successfully positioned on the world market and are particularly good for telling stories about.
They can all taste good, but they're not the world's best coffees, just expensive and marketing-hyped. With Monsooned Malabar, that's less problematic and this coffee does cater to a common flavor profile. It tastes nutty, somewhat earthy-robusta-like, but is an Arabica. For many, it's an accessible espresso.
There are good Jamaica Blue Mountains. What's special about these coffees is the limited quantity and exclusive marketing. Something has succeeded here that you'd wish for all coffee regions. A positioning as a region on the world market. Jamaica Blue Mountain includes a small wooden barrel for transport.
The Kopi Luwak, with all its variants, is, however, a highly problematic development. The Indonesian palm civet naturally eats certain amounts of coffee cherries. The gastrointestinal tract separates cherry flesh and seed. After excreting, the seed can be collected, dried, and marketed. The story is so absurd that it sells because of its oddity. So much so that palm civets are kept in cages and stuffed with cherries to increase the amount of coffee production. Humans are creative when it comes to maximizing profit. Larger animals are also stuffed with cherries and used as fermentation channels. The coffee that ultimately emerges is not of particular quality. But the story works wonderfully for media and people to pick up on. We're very clear here and finally the language fits. What's marketed as coffee here is bullshit.
All these coffees are not the world's best coffees. In fact, they achieve very low scores in sensory comparison with high-quality coffees. Truly extraordinary coffees like a Panama Geisha are rated over 90 points. Monsooned Malabar and Kopi Luwak struggle to get above 75 points.
If you're looking for the best coffees in a country, you'll find them at Cup of Excellence. In this competition, sometimes over 100 producers per country compete in the first round to have a national and international jury find the best coffee in the country.
