"This coffee is perfect for you and tastes the best." You'll never read a sentence like that from me. Because taste is individual. Maybe we even prefer 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-making tips in these articles, you can discover your taste preferences and make the right choice in front of the coffee shelf.
Unfortunately, you only know if a coffee really tastes good when you drink it. But if you follow these tips, you'll keep getting closer to your favorite coffees.
1. The coffee drinker type: Espresso, Moka, or Filter?
If you're absolutely sure that you're an espresso person or filter coffee drinker, then you can jump straight to the "Which coffee for espresso?" section. But it might also be interesting for you to find out why your guests always want to drink espresso or filter coffee at your place. That might have something to do with you.
Every coffee drink can be good! The question is, when do you want to drink the coffee and what should it do?
The kurze espresso is drunk at the end of a meal or kurze al volo , meaning on the fly. The perfect quick pleasure and concentrated caffeine and flavor. One sip and it's gone! Espresso is many things, but not a good socializer. The time it spends in the cup is simply too short.
If you're sitting at an afternoon café date with your dream person and they order an espresso, you're allowed to get nervous. If the order is Filterkaffe or Latte Macchiato, then that's quite promising. Both are the longest drinks in the coffee world and the 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 opposite to the Stärke concentration. The smaller a drink is, the higher the concentration. All drinks have roughly the same amount of caffeine as well as other flavors that make coffee what it is. What's decisive is the eingesetzte amount of coffee and not so much the concentration of coffee particles. From 9g of coffee beans you always extract roughly the same amount – whether the drink is 25 ml espresso or 150 ml filter coffee.
The concentration of coffee particles is mainly important for the 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 power of the coffee grounds used dilutes with only about 25 ml 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 and 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 a bitter or sour coffee as an espresso, you'll taste it 10 times stronger in the espresso. Because it's up to 10 times as concentrated.
Are you more of an espresso person or more of a filter coffee person? Or are you somewhere in the middle, with café crème or Americano? Remember where you fall. Because that's crucial for choosing coffee beans.
2. Light, medium, or dark roasted?
Even before choosing the bean, it's worth determining whether lighter or darker roasts suit you better. Depending on that, it may not matter quite as much in terms of flavor when choosing the coffee bean.
Basically, the lighter a roaster roasts their coffees, the more you taste the coffee bean. The darker coffee is roasted, the more the flavor notes become similar. Dark roasted coffees taste increasingly roasty with longer roasting. Light roasted coffees remind you that coffee itself is a fruit.
The higher quality a coffee is, the more complex it is, and this shows much more clearly in the light roasted state. But even the most complex flavor notes reduce when a roast gets very dark. Roasting is a process that chemically transforms coffee and then increasingly "burns" substance. In the end, ashy and burnt notes remain.
The spectrum of coffee flavor 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 instead. The area between the two extremes is recommended for adventurous coffee drinkers from both camps.
Light roasting is as much a master discipline of roasters as precise dark roasting. Roasts that are too light are "underdeveloped", taste grassy and grainy. With dark roasts, significantly more smoke develops. But the coffee should taste as little like it as possible. Bread-like flavor notes develop when longer roasts don't receive enough energy in the roaster. This phenomenon, called "baking", counts as a roasting defect.
So the art is to master the extremes of roasts in the light or darker range, or to combine both in medium roasts.
Remember: The darker something is roasted, the less you taste the diverse flavor notes of high-quality raw coffees. The lighter something is roasted, the more clearly you can tell if the raw coffee isn't 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 topic of roasting is very complex and is presented here in short form.
3. Coffee beans for your happiness: Arabica or Robusta
Coffea Arabica is the more widespread and naturally higher quality coffee species. Coffea Canephora is the counterpart to Arabica and is commonly known as Robusta Robusta. Both species in turn consist of many subspecies and also exist as crossbreeds. 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 examined from one perspective. However, this viewpoint does neither justice and has especially blocked Robusta in its 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 amount of caffeine, Canephora is more bitter. Because of the more pronounced bitterness perceived, acidity and sweetness of Canephoras come less to the fore, leading to limited flavor complexity in the cup. And here the cat bites its own tail. Due to this basic premise, work on cultivating Canephora was sometimes significantly less careful over decades. This reinforced the earthy-bitter flavor profile with off-notes and irregularities, which also led to a fundamentally lower price for Canephoras at the coffee exchange. Historically, Canephora has taken on the role of a strong-powerful component in coffee blends. With a compact crema, Canephora became the standard for many inexpensive 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 delicate acidity. When Arabica is cultivated in high altitudes and processed cleanly, enormous complexity develops. This basic flavor characteristic of Arabica varieties led to Arabica being further optimized for quality. An evaluation profile tailored to Arabica supported this development. The term "specialty coffee" today refers exclusively to Arabica coffees.
Wanting to compare Arabica and Canephora is like putting a pear next to an apple. You won't do justice to either. All the more encouraging that increasingly more producers and producing countries are focusing on producing high-quality Canephoras. A pioneer in this is Uganda, which played a leading role in developing an evaluation form focused on 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 changing climate will reduce Arabica growing areas and expand Robusta growing areas.
When does Robusta make sense?
Robusta is perfect for those who like 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, you have a strong option in Robusta. Robusta's own flavor is strong enough not to be masked by milk.
When does Arabica make sense?
With its complexity and naturally present acidity, many Arabicas are excellent filter coffees. Especially varieties grown at altitude that were harvested when fully ripe and processed precisely are flavorful to discover. The flavor variety of Arabicas is enormous, so you can find an Arabica variety or processing method for every drink and every taste. Arabicas can equally be used for espresso roasts and blends. They come as single origins or as blends. Your experimentation has no limits 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 French press, also called a plunger pot, suits the same coffee as classic filter methods like the Melitta filter, the Hario V60 filter, or other hand filters.
Filter coffee is weaker coffee compared to 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 just as not very concentrated and therefore not very bitter as coffees with more pronounced fruit acidity.
From that perspective, in the range of Filterkaffee everything is possible and left to your own taste. I personally 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 in Kenya or Ethiopia, coffee flavor already varies greatly within a single country. The difference to coffees from Central America or Papua New Guinea is even much greater.
Coffees brewed as filters are perfect for exploring coffee diversity. I therefore recommend: give it a try.
Here are some flavor pointers:
- Kenyan coffees often taste like red berries and are my favorite coffees for Cold Brew.
- Äthiopische, Naturally processed coffees are often floral and have notes of blueberries.
- Coffees from Dipilto in Nicaragua taste strongly of chocolate.
- Blue Batak from Sumatra has licorice notes.
- Brazilian coffees often have nougat-chocolate notes.
A coffee's flavor depends largely on the region, the variety, and the way it's harvested and processed. That's why 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 you prefer. I personally drink filter coffees most in the light to medium roasted spectrum. To discover outstanding filter coffees on the German-language market, I founded the Kaffee-Panel with sensory world champion Gloria Pedroza. We taste filter coffees and crown the test winners. You can find our own Filterkaffees filter coffees here.
5. Which coffee for espresso?
Espresso is, along with Turkish coffee, the strongest drink in the coffee universe. In numbers: about 7–10% concentrated coffee particles in relation to 90–93% water. What comes together in 20 to 30 milliliters is the full coffee load. That's exactly why the internal balance of the coffee before and after brewing plays such a large role. At this concentration, anything unpleasant is potentiated, not delicious. Conveniently, the opposite is true as well. Delicious is very delicious!
That's why choosing coffee requires just as much care as with filter coffee. And above all, "acidity" should be enjoyed with caution. Important: Acidity is crucial for complexity in every high-quality treat. A wine without acidity or chocolate without acidity tastes bland and boring. It's similar with coffee. The challenge is to bring this acidity into balance with other attributes, namely balance with sweetness, bitterness, and mouthfeel.
Roasting plays an important role here, as does extraction. Because with coffee, unlike wine, it's not enough to just buy a good product. It still needs to be prepared. If you manage to bring out pronounced acidity in balance, then the espresso is pretty much guaranteed to be magnificent. Preparation isn't difficult and is easy to learn, but does require some care.
That's why I recommend going for longer developed, meaning darker roasted coffees for espresso. It's then easier to extract these during brewing as well.
If you feel confident, you can try things freely. Often on a coffee package it says: "for espresso" or "crema beans". That refers to the way the coffee was roasted. There are no "crema beans" or "espresso beans". It depends solely on how a coffee was roasted and whether it's suitable for a drink with that roast or not. The roasting philosophy of the roaster also plays a role. For example, I use the "filter coffee" from rather dark roasting roasters as espresso because it still seems balanced to me as an espresso.
Which 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 darker roast. These roasts are roasted the same way by roasters in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. You don't have to reach for an Italian package with a brand name. Many local roasters provide you with "Italian profiles". Once again: the most important keywords are "dark", "strong", and often "Robusta content".
If the espresso still doesn't taste like it does in Italy or radiate the atmosphere of the Italian barista, then it's either due to the preparation method, drink length, or your lack of vacation mood. I claim the espresso toward Italy tastes so good because we're on our way to vacation AND because the shots are much shorter and snappier. In Italy we usually drink 15–18 ml 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.
When we drink 40 ml espressos from the fully automatic machine in Switzerland, it's more like 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 the Italian espresso, which convinces through strength and bitterness, is the slightly longer, more balanced espresso. Besides choosing the coffee, the brew ratio plays a big role. How many grams of coffee are dosed into the portafilter and how many are brewed into the cup?
I personally brühe like to work with a ratio of 1:2.5, so for example 9 grams into the portafilter and 22.5 grams into the cup. With some coffees I also like a ratio of 1:3, so 9 grams into the portafilter and 27 grams into the cup.
How capsule coffee changed espresso drinkers
If you prepare espresso with a ratio of 1:2 or 1:2.5 and your guests think that's "too strong", then you're probably dealing with capsule coffee drinkers. It's amazing how much capsule coffee consumption has already changed our beverage and coffee habits.
In a capsule, regardless of the manufacturer, there are usually only about 5 to 5.5 grams of coffee. However, the conventional capsule machine dispenses a "typical drink amount" into the cup, so 25 ml and more. Many capsule machines brew a standard 35 milliliters of "espresso". The brewing ratio is then effectively 1:6 and the strength of the coffee differs significantly from a "classic" espresso. This has about 7–10% dissolved coffee particles. Capsule espresso only reaches 3–5% dissolved coffee particles.
This makes it more similar to an Americano or café crème than a real espresso. If you frequently drink "espresso" like that, you get used to this flavor profile and are then initially overwhelmed by an espresso from the portafilter machine with a ratio of 1:2.5.
Espresso from very good roasteries
Some very fine espressos have also recently been in my grinder. I particularly liked coffees from Adrianos (CH), the Röstbar (DE), Stoll Coffee (CH), Wildkaffee (DE), Rösterei Four (DE), Flying Roasters (DE), Felix Coffee (AT). This is not a definitive list, but a loose listing of very good roasteries from which I was recently able to try coffees. You can find Unsere my own espresso roasts here. A very excellent overview with a comparison of various coffee beans can be found in Blog-Artikel by Coffeeness.
6. Reading the coffee label correctly and what you shouldn't buy
The imaginative stringing together of empty phrases reaches its peak on coffee packages. Very often, the much-publicized refined crown with gentle artisanal long-time roasting is an artful description of 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 it, that's already a sign of the likely quality. The rule is: the more that's on a package, the more the roaster knows about the coffee themselves or is willing to share this information, and the higher the probability that it's better quality.
When looking at coffee labels, the analogy to wine is helpful. If a wine says "red wine" on it, we know we've reached the cheapest and lowest quality section of the shelf. Coffees that are labeled "Robusta" or "Arabica" fall into this category.
If you find information about the country of origin on the bottle, we're slowly approaching better qualities. But seriously – who buys a wine with the generic designation "from France" wants to create an elegant taste experience? No, 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 you assess whether the coffee is fresh or old. After two months, a noticeable decrease in flavor quality begins with whole bean coffee.
Origin information: country, region, producer/cooperative/processing facility. For some regions, there are DOC certifications, meaning verified origin seals.
Composition: whether it's a single-origin coffee or a blend. In the case of a blend, the blend ratio of Arabica/Robusta should be stated and the origin information adjusted accordingly.
Exemplary label text on a coffee bag:
Processing information: whether the coffees were washed or naturally processed or experimentally processed.
Varieties: which varieties or cultivars of Arabica/Canephora are they.
Clarification of origin information: not necessary, but interesting are lot number/name and altitude information.
Additional info: some roasteries provide the purchase price of the raw coffee or also information about roasting. That's exemplary and stands for a new way of communicating with consumers. More information about this in our Artikel about 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.
So which coffees should you buy?
I recommend radicalism at this point. If the minimum information isn't provided, I wouldn't buy and try a coffee. The probability of missing out on something good is very low. There are probably also many bargains not in the selection. But these mostly convince with price rather than quality.
Minimum information is not difficult for a roaster to find and provide if they buy high-quality coffees. The excuse that no "trade secrets" or "special blends" should be disclosed is nonsense. Roasteries that win significant international roasting competitions make their roasting curves and blends public.
Secrecy is out of place here. Industrial roasteries buy the same standard coffees and mix them back together in quite similar ratios. Hiding behind secret recipes for blends or origins is a fig leaf covering inferior coffee qualities.
If I have the minimum info, will the coffee taste good?
Unfortunately, it's not guaranteed that you'll like a coffee that lists the minimum information on the packaging. That needs to 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 to you.
Bitterness and acidity are often confused sensorially. Train yourself by biting into a lemon as a reference for acidity and remember well how acidity feels in your mouth. A pattern for bitterness is, for example, gentian or artichoke. Store these references internally and check the coffee.
If you can rule out that bitterness or acidity comes from extraction, describe your taste experience to the roaster. Maybe they have a suggestion for you that tastes less unpleasant to you. If you're not getting anywhere with this roaster, try another one.
Taste and sample coffee
Coffee tastings are an excellent way to try different coffees side by side. If these are prepared by roasters or coffee professionals, you can also rule out that you're doing something wrong yourself.
So use every coffee tasting in your region as an opportunity to learn more about coffee and fill your own flavor database. Many roasteries hold regular tastings. Coffee festivals are also a good opportunity to taste coffees from different regions directly side by side.
This is also possible guided and accompanied in sensory courses. We ourselves conduct Sensorik-Kurse at our academy, but also come to you or hold tastings at team and company events.
7. Which coffee is healthy and palatable?
Coffee is neither explicitly healthy nor unhealthy. It has both health-promoting effects and problematic effects, especially when drunk in large quantities. A reference is often "5 cups of about 150 ml each". The truth is actually a bit more complicated, as always, 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, are known to be carcinogenic. We recorded a Video in English about furan and acrylamides and will write another article here.
Coffee palatability
How well a coffee is tolerated again depends closely on its quality and processing. It shouldn't be forgotten that coffee is the pit of a fruit. With other fruits too, unpleasant side effects occur when they're eaten unripe or overripe. It's similar with coffee.
High-quality coffee is selectively harvested. For this, the picker usually has to walk through the bushes three times within a few weeks and harvest the deep red or dark yellow cherries. Coffee cherries don't ripen together per plant. This type of harvest is very time-consuming and correspondingly costly. That's why it's skipped in the production of cheap coffees. Instead of picking the cherries individually, coffee is stripped by hand or even harvested by machine.
Such unequal ripeness stages of coffee cherries cause some follow-up problems. They fermentieren ferment differently – if they're fermented at all. These beans dry differently and also behave differently during roasting. The roast level is therefore not uniform, the flavor differs, and palatability is altered. Very often, such beans are the decisive palatability problem.
The speed and duration of roasting also has an effect on palatability. But that's again its own big topic where furan and acrylamides come into play. You'll do well with coffees that are neither roasted too quickly nor too light and not too dark and too long. We'll address this topic in our article series on roasting, which tops the list of articles to be written.
14 hand grinders from us tested.
8. The best coffee is freshly ground
Even with the best coffee and the right roast for you, the last step to perfect coffee isn't done. It's missing the fresh grind. 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 inside of the coffee. But as soon as the coffee is ground, its surface area increases many times over. One bean becomes thousands of particles that on one hand release aroma substances into the air and on the other hand are spread open to oxygen.
In this moment, an accelerated aging process begins. Within 20 minutes, even for an untrained palate the difference between freshly ground and ground 20 minutes ago is perceptible.
What we're now losing is not the basic flavor of the coffee. The coffee still tastes like coffee. But it no longer tastes complex, surprising, lively – just like coffee. If you extend the waiting time, coffee soon tastes rancid because the fats begin to oxidize. By the latest now it becomes unappetizing.
Fresh and self-grinding is highly recommended for another reason. This is the only way to adapt the grind size to your own needs and your own brewing method. The grind size sets the resistance of the coffee in the cake. This constantly needs to be adjusted, from day to day and coffee to coffee.
So: if you want to improve coffee quality with simple means, the first thing you do is switch from pre-ground to fresh and self-ground. This is also possible "affordably". We tested 14 hand grinders that work for filter coffee and sometimes for espresso.
And on the record: whoever buys pre-ground has no control whatsoever over the visual quality of the coffee beans. That's why lower quality raw coffee is often used for coffee industrially bagged as ground coffee than for the same coffee or the same brand as whole beans.
9. The best coffee in the world
And what about this civet 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 were successfully positioned on the world market and are particularly good for telling stories about them.
They can all taste good, but they're not the best coffees in the world, just expensive and hyped by marketing. With Monsooned Malabar this is less problematic and this coffee also serves a common flavor profile. It tastes nutty, somewhat earthy-robusta-like, but is an Arabica. For many, an accessible espresso.
There are good Jamaica Blue Mountains. What's special about this coffee, however, is the limited quantity and exclusive marketing. Here something succeeded that you'd wish for all coffee regions. A positioning as a region on the world market. With Jamaica Blue Mountain this includes a small wooden barrel for transport.
Kopi Luwak with all its variants, however, is a highly problematic development. The Indonesian civet naturally eats certain amounts of coffee cherries. The gastrointestinal tract separates cherry flesh and pit. After being excreted, the pit can be collected, dried, and marketed. The story is so absurd that it sells because of its absurdity. So much so that civets are kept in cages and stuffed with cherries to increase the amount of coffee production. Humans are resourceful when it comes to maximizing profits. So larger animals are also stuffed with cherries and used as a fermentation channel. The coffee that ultimately results is not of particular quality. But the story is perfect for being picked up by media and people. We're very clear here and finally the language fits. What's marketed here as coffee is shit.
All these coffees are not the best coffees in the world. In fact, in sensory comparison with high-quality coffees, they achieve very low scores. Really extraordinary coffees like a Panama Geisha are rated above 90 points. The Monsooned Malabar and Kopi Luwak struggle to get above 75 points.
Anyone looking for the best coffees from a country finds them at Cup of Excellence. In this competition, in the first round sometimes over 100 producers per country compete to have a national and international jury find the best coffee in the country.
