"This coffee suits you and tastes best." You will never read a sentence like that from me. Because taste is individual. Perhaps we don't even like the same coffee drinks.
This article is intended to help you find out which coffees and coffee beans suit YOU.
With the 9 decision-making tips in these articles, you can find out your taste preferences and make the right decision in front of the coffee shelf.
Unfortunately, you only realize whether you really like a coffee once it's in the cup. But if you follow these tips, you will get closer and closer to your favorite coffees.
1. The coffee drinker type: Espresso, Mocha, or Filter?
If you are absolutely sure that you are an espresso type or a filter coffee drinker, then you can skip directly to the "Which coffee for espresso?" section. Perhaps, however, it is also interesting for you to learn why your guests always want to drink espresso or filter coffee at your place. Because 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 is it supposed to do?
The short espresso is drunk at the end of a meal or al volo, i.e., on the fly. The perfect quick pleasure and concentrated caffeine and taste. One sip and it's gone! Espresso is many things, but not a good socializer. The duration in the cup is simply too short for that.
If you are sitting in a café for an afternoon date with your dream woman or man and he or she orders an espresso, you are allowed to get nervous. If the order is filter coffee or latte macchiato, then that is definitely promising. The two are the longest drinks in the coffee guild and the perfect companions for conversation.
Note: Do you want to drink coffee for a long time and comfortably?
Then filter coffees, café crema, or espresso-milk mixed drinks like the latte macchiato or cappuccino are suitable. The espresso is the perfect quick drink.
The quantity of the drink is contrasted with the strength. The smaller a drink is, the higher the concentration. All drinks have about the same amount of caffeine as well as other aromas that make up coffee. The decisive factor for this is the amount of coffee used and not so much the concentration of the coffee particles. You always dissolve approximately the same amount from 9 g of coffee beans – whether the drink is 25 ml of espresso or 150 ml of filter coffee.
The concentration of the coffee particles is important above all for the mouthfeel. The more strongly a coffee is concentrated, the thicker the drink. A strong espresso feels heavy and creamy in the mouth.
At the same time, you experience an explosion of taste, as the concentrated power of the coffee powder used is diluted with only approx. 25 ml of water. It consists of approx. 7 – 10% dissolved coffee particles and correspondingly 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 is tea-like in consistency and feels soft and light in the mouth. The taste is rather "spread out" compared to espresso and not as explosive. As a result, with filter coffee, you also have more time to discover different flavor notes.
Important: Already just because of the concentration: Filter coffee is more forgiving! If you brew an espresso from a bitter or acidic coffee, you will taste it 10x stronger in the espresso. Because it is up to 10 times as concentrated.
Are you more of an espresso or more of a filter coffee type? Or are you in the middle, with café crème or Americano? Remember where you classify yourself. Because that is decisive for the choice of coffee beans.
2. Light, medium, or dark roasted?
Even before choosing the beans, it is worth determining whether lighter or darker roasts suit you better. Depending on this, it then doesn't matter quite as much when it comes to the taste of the coffee bean choice.
Basically, it's like this: the lighter a roaster roasts its coffees, the more you taste the coffee bean. The darker coffee is roasted, the more the flavor notes become similar. Dark roasted coffees always taste more roasted with a longer roasting time. Light roasted coffees remind one that coffee itself is a fruit.
The higher the quality of a coffee, the more complex it is, and this shows more clearly in the lightly roasted state. But even the most complex flavor notes are reduced when a roast becomes very dark. Roasting is a process that first changes coffee chemically and then "burns" more and more substance. In the end, ashy and burnt notes remain.
The spectrum of coffee taste ranges from fruity – sweet – chocolatey – to roasted. If you are interested in the fruity notes, you should try lighter roasts. If you prefer roasted notes, then reach for dark coffee. The range 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 a precise dark roast to the point. Roasts that are too light are "underdeveloped" and taste grassy and cereal-like. With dark roasts, significantly more smoke is created. However, the coffee should taste as little as possible like that. Bread-like flavor notes are created when sufficient energy is not supplied to the roaster during longer roasting times. This phenomenon, known as "baking," counts as one of the roasting defects.
The art is therefore to master the extremes of the roasts in the light or darker area or to combine both with medium roasts.
Note: the darker it is roasted, the less you taste the diverse flavor notes of high-quality raw coffees. The lighter it is roasted, the more clearly it can be determined that the raw coffee is not good and perhaps even has off-flavors. Roasteries that buy less high-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 inherently higher-quality type of coffee. Coffea Canephora is the counterpart to Arabica and is generally referred to as Robusta. Both types consist in turn of many subspecies and also occur as crossbreeds. The two siblings of the Coffea family could hardly be more different. They have fundamentally different taste profiles and the caffeine content differs from each other.
Because they belong to the same family, the mismatched pair is regularly viewed from one perspective. This angle, however, does not do justice to both and has above all long blocked the Robusta in its quality development.
The taste profile of Canephoras is strong, earthy, and full-bodied. Due to higher chlorogenic acid and double the amount of caffeine, Canephora is more bitter. Due to the more pronounced perception of bitterness, acidity and sweetness of Canephoras come to the fore less, which leads to limited taste complexity in the cup. And here the cat bites its own tail. Due to this basic premise, work in the cultivation of Canephora was often significantly less careful for decades. As a result, the earthy-bitter taste profile was reinforced by off-notes and irregularities, which also leads to a fundamentally lower price for Canephoras on the coffee exchange. Historically, Canephora takes on a role as a strong, powerful component in coffee blends. With a compact crema, Robusta became the measure of many cheap espresso blends. Especially in southern Italian espresso blends, but also in many instant coffees, a great deal of Robusta is used.
Arabica has diverse aromatics, relatively little perceived bitterness, and more pronounced fine acids. If Arabica is cultivated at high altitudes and processed cleanly, enormous complexity develops. This basic taste disposition of the Arabica varieties led to the Arabica being further trimmed for quality. A rating profile geared towards Arabica supported this development. The term "specialty coffee" today aims exclusively at Arabica coffees.
Wanting to compare Arabica and Canephora is like putting the pear next to the apple. You don't do either justice. It is all the more gratifying that more and more producers and producing countries are focusing on the production of high-quality Canephoras. A pioneer here is Uganda, which played a leading role in the development of a rating form geared towards Canephora. This so-called "fine cup standard" will play an increasingly important role in the future. Not only because it is getting better, but also because the changing climate will reduce the cultivation areas of Arabica and increase the cultivation areas of Robusta.
When does Robusta make sense?
Robusta is perfect for everyone who likes really strong coffees. With lots of punch, caffeine, and a thick crema. The Robusta is standard in strong Italian blends. Anyone who likes coffee-milk drinks like cappuccino or latte macchiato has a strong option in the Robusta. The inherent taste of the Robusta is strong enough not to be masked by the milk.
When does Arabica make sense?
With its complexity and the naturally occurring acidity, many Arabicas are excellent filter coffees. Especially varieties grown at high altitudes that have been harvested fully ripe and processed precisely are exciting to discover in terms of taste. The variety of tastes of Arabicas is enormous, and so an Arabica variety or processing method can be found for every drink and every taste. Arabicas can just as easily be used for espresso roasts and blends. They are used single-origin or as a blend. There are no limits to experimentation here.
4. Which coffee for filter coffee and French Press?
The French Press joins the ranks of the various filter and brewing methods. In terms of taste, the same coffee is suitable for the French Press, which is also called a plunger pot, as for classic filter methods like the Melitta filter, the Hario V60 filter, or other manual filters.
Filter coffee is less strong 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." More bitter coffees are also only slightly concentrated and thus less bitter, just as coffees that have more accentuated fruit acids are.
Seen this way, everything is possible in the field of filter coffee and left to one's own taste. I personally recommend lighter roasted coffees for filter coffees, where the roast notes are in the background. Filter coffee is very well suited to exploring the different flavor notes of different coffee regions. Depending on the region in Kenya or Ethiopia, the taste of the coffee already differs strongly within one country. The difference to coffees that come from Central America or Papua New Guinea is even greater.
Coffees brewed as filters are perfect for exploring coffee variety. I therefore recommend: try it out.
Here are a few flavor pointers:
- Kenyan coffees often taste like red berries and are my favorite coffees for cold brew.
- Ethiopian, naturally processed coffees are not infrequently floral and show notes of blue berries.
- 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.
The taste of a coffee depends significantly on the region, the variety, and the way it is harvested and processed (processing). That is 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, which is why any list is too short. And as described above, this also depends strongly on which roasting philosophy tastes best to you. I personally prefer drinking filter coffees in the light to medium roast spectrum. To discover outstanding filter coffees on the German-speaking market, I founded the Coffee Panel with Sensorics World Champion Gloria Pedroza. We taste filter coffees and crown the test winners. You can find our own filter coffees here.
5. Which coffee for espresso?
Espresso is, next to Turkish coffee, the strongest drink in the coffee universe. Expressed in numbers, that means: around 7 – 10% concentrated coffee particles in relation to 90 – 93% water. What comes together in 20 to 30 milliliters is the full coffee charge. Exactly for this reason, the inner balance of the coffee before and after brewing plays such a big role. At this concentration, everything unpleasant is amplified and not tasty. Conveniently, however, that is also the case in the reverse situation. Tasty things are very tasty!
That is why just as much care is required when selecting the coffee as with filter coffee. And above all, "acidity" is to be enjoyed with caution. Important: Acidity is decisive for complexity in every high-quality luxury food. A wine without acidity or a chocolate without acidity tastes bland and boring. It is similar with coffee. The challenge is to bring this acidity into balance with the remaining attributes, i.e., in balance with sweetness, bitterness, and mouthfeel.
The roast plays an important role here, as does the extraction. Because with coffee, unlike wine, it is not enough to just buy a good product. It must first be prepared. If you manage to bring a pronounced acidity into balance, then the espresso is almost certainly magnificent. The preparation is not difficult and easy to learn, but requires a certain amount of care.
Therefore, I recommend choosing coffees for espresso that are more developed, i.e., roasted darker. It is then easier to extract these in the brewing process as well.
Those who feel confident can try everything under the sun. Often it says on a coffee pack: "for espresso" or "crema beans." This refers to the way of roasting. There are no "crema beans" or "espresso beans." It depends solely and exclusively on how a coffee was roasted and whether it is suitable for a drink with this roast or not. The roasting philosophy of the roaster also plays a role here. For example, I use "filter coffee" from roasters who roast rather dark 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 portion probably plays a big role and you like the bitterness of the rather darker roast. Roasters in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland also roast these roasts this way. You don't have to reach for an Italian pack with a brand name for that. Many local roasters provide you with "Italian profiles." Again: the most important keywords are "dark," "strong," and often "Robusta portion."
If the espresso then still doesn't taste like it does in Italy or radiates the atmosphere of the Italian barista, then that is either due to the preparation method, drink length, or your non-existent vacation mood. I claim that the espresso towards Italy tastes so good because we are on our way to vacation AND because the shots are much shorter and snappier. In Italy, we usually drink 15 – 18 ml of espresso. If 7 – 8 grams of coffee are used for this, then it is really strong and, above all, thick. If there is also a Robusta portion, the spoon almost stands in the crema.
If we drink 40 ml espressos from the automatic machine in Switzerland, that is more similar to a café crème than this concentrated dark espresso. Speaking of which, Italy in the south and Italy in the north also differ significantly. The further south, the higher the Robusta portion.
The counterpart to Italian espresso, which convinces with strength and bitterness, is the somewhat longer, more balanced espresso. In addition to the selection of coffee, the brewing ratio plays a major role here. How many grams of coffee are dosed into the portafilter and how much is brewed into the cup?
I personally like brewing 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, i.e., 9 grams in the portafilter and 27 grams in the cup.
How capsule coffee changes espresso drinkers
If you prepare espresso with a ratio of 1:2 or 1:2.5 and your guests find that "too strong," then you are probably dealing with capsule coffee drinkers. It is amazing how strongly the consumption of capsule coffee has already changed our drink and coffee habits.
In a capsule, regardless of the manufacturer, there are generally only approx. 5 to 5.5 grams of coffee. The conventional capsule machine, however, gives a "typical drink quantity" into the cup, i.e., 25 ml and more. Many capsule machines brew 35 milliliters of "espresso" as standard. The brewing ratio is then effectively 1:6 and the strength of the coffee deviates strongly from a "classic" espresso. This has approx. 7 – 10% dissolved coffee particles. The capsule espresso only reaches 3 – 5% dissolved coffee particles.
It is therefore more similar to an Americano or café crème than a real espresso. Anyone who frequently drinks "espresso" like this gets used to this flavor profile and is then initially overwhelmed by an espresso from a portafilter machine with a ratio of 1:2.5.
Espresso from very good roasteries
Some very fine espressos have also been in my grinder recently. 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 an exhaustive list, but a loose listing of very good roasteries whose coffees I have been able to try recently. You can find our own espresso roasts here. You can find a very excellent overview with a comparison of different coffee beans in the blog article by Coffeeness.
6. Reading the coffee label correctly and what you shouldn't buy
The imaginative sequence of empty phrases reaches its peak on coffee packaging. Very often, the touted refined crowning with gentle artisanal long-term roasting is an artistic paraphrase for cheap exchange coffee without origin information.
When reading labels, I recommend a radical approach. Look for precision, this applies especially in the supermarket. If you then don't find what you are looking for, that is already an indication of the expected quality. The rule is: the more that is on a pack, the more the roaster knows about the coffee itself or is willing to share this information, and the higher the probability that it is better quality.
When looking at coffee labels, the analogy to wine is helpful. If it says "red wine" on a wine, we know that we have arrived at the cheapest and lowest-quality assortment shelf. Coffees labeled with "Robusta" or "Arabica" fall into this category.
If you find information on the bottle about the country of origin, we are taking slow steps towards better qualities. But honestly – anyone who buys a wine with the flat designation "from France" doesn't want to create an elegant taste experience, but rather to get drunk and knowingly accepts the pre-programmed headache the next day.
What is on the coffee packaging of a high-quality coffee?
Recommended minimum standard:
The roast date: the date when the coffee was roasted. Only if the roast date is known can it be assessed whether the coffee is fresh or old. After two months, a detectable reduction in taste quality begins for coffees in whole bean form.
Origin information: Country, region, producer/cooperative/processing facility. For some regions, DOC certifications are available, i.e., verified origin seals.
Composition: is it a single-origin coffee or a blend. In the case of a blend, the mixing ratio of Arabica/Robusta should be stated and the origin information adapted accordingly.
Exemplary label text on a coffee bag:
Processing information: were the coffees washed, naturally processed, or experimentally processed.
Varieties: which varieties or cultivars of Arabica/Canephora are they.
Specification of origin information: not necessary, but interesting are lot number/name and altitude information.
Further info: some roasteries state the purchase price of the raw coffee or information about the roast. This is exemplary and stands for a new type of communication with the consumer. More information on this in our article on transparency.
Fairtrade and organic seals in themselves say nothing about the quality of a coffee. However, they are an indication that premiums and a minimum price were paid for these coffees.
And which coffees to buy now?
I recommend radicalism at this point. If the minimum information is not given, I would not buy or try a coffee. The probability that something good will be missed is very low. Presumably, then, many bargains are not among the selection either. But these usually convince more with the price than through quality.
The minimum information is not difficult for a roaster to obtain and state if they buy high-quality coffees. The excuse that no "trade secrets" or "special blends" should be revealed is nonsense. Roasteries that win significant international roasting competitions disclose their roast curves and blends.
Secrecy is misplaced here. Industrial roasteries buy the same standard coffees and mix them together again in very similar ratios. Hiding behind secret recipes for blends or origins is a fig leaf for inferior coffee qualities.
If I have the minimum info, does the coffee taste good?
Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that a coffee that states the minimum information on the packaging will taste good to you. That must be tried and tested from time to time. With every bag of coffee, however, you will notice whether the direction and roasting philosophy of a roaster suits you. Try to describe as precisely as possible whether coffees are too bitter or acidic, too smoky or mild to you.
Bitterness and acidity in particular are often confused sensorically. Train yourself by biting into a lemon as a reference for acidity and remembering well how the acidity behaves in your mouth. A pattern for bitterness is, for example, gentian or even the artichoke. Store these references internally and test the coffee.
If you can rule out that bitterness or acidity comes from the extraction, describe your taste experience to the roaster. Perhaps they have a suggestion for you that tastes less like what is unpleasant for you. If you don't see eye to eye with this roaster, try another one.
Degust and taste coffee
Coffee tastings are an excellent opportunity to try different coffees side-by-side. If these are prepared by roasters or coffee professionals, it can also be ruled out that you are doing something wrong yourself.
Therefore, use every coffee tasting in your region as an opportunity to learn more about coffee and to fill your own taste database. Many roasteries hold tastings regularly. Coffee festivals are also a good opportunity to taste coffees from different regions directly side-by-side.
Guided and accompanied, this is also possible in sensory courses. We ourselves conduct sensory courses in our academy, but we also come to you or taste at team and company events.
7. Which coffee is healthy and wholesome?
Coffee is neither explicitly healthy nor unhealthy. It has both health-promoting effects as well as problematic effects, especially when drunk in large quantities. In this context, "5 cups of approx. 150 ml" is often cited as a reference. The truth is, in reality, as always, somewhat more complicated and depends on many factors – not least one's 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, which, while not proven to be carcinogenic in coffee, are known to be carcinogenic. We have recorded a video in English about furan and acrylamides and will write another article here.
Wholesomeness of coffee
How well a coffee is tolerated again depends closely on the quality and processing. It should not be forgotten that coffee is the pit of a fruit. With other fruits too, there are unpleasant side effects if they are eaten unripe or overripe. It is similar with coffee.
High-quality coffee is harvested selectively. For this, the picker must as a rule walk through the bushes three times within a few weeks and harvest the deep red or dark yellow cherries. Coffee cherries do not ripen together per plant. This type of harvest is very laborious and correspondingly cost-intensive. Therefore, it is omitted in the production of cheap coffees. Instead of picking the cherries individually, the coffee is stripped by hand or even harvested by machine.
Such uneven ripeness stages of the coffee cherries trigger a few follow-up problems. They ferment differently – if they are fermented. These beans dry differently and also behave differently in the roast. The roast level is therefore not uniform, the taste differs, and the wholesomeness is changed. Very often, such beans are the decisive wholesomeness problem.
The speed and duration of the roast also have an effect on wholesomeness, by the way. But that is again a separate, large topic, which again involves furan and acrylamides. You will do well with coffees that are roasted neither too quickly nor too light and also not too dark and too long. We address this topic in our article series on the topic of roasts, which is right at the top of the list of articles to be written.
14 hand grinders tested by us.
8. The best coffee is freshly ground
Even with the best coffee and the roast that suits you, the final step to the perfect coffee has not yet been taken. The fresh grind is missing. And by fresh, I mean shortly before you brew. As long as coffee is not ground, coffee protects itself through its own protective layer. It is then not easy for oxygen to penetrate to the inside of the coffee. As soon as the coffee is ground, however, its surface increases by a multiple. A single bean becomes thousands of particles, which on one hand release aromatic substances into the air and on the other hand are spread out and accessible to oxygen.
At this moment, an accelerated aging process begins. Within 20 minutes, even for untrained palates, the difference between a freshly ground coffee and a coffee ground 20 minutes ago is noticeable.
What we lose now is not the basic taste of the coffee. The coffee still tastes like coffee. But it no longer tastes complex, surprising, lively – but just like coffee. If you prolong the waiting time, coffee soon tastes rancid, as the fats begin to oxidize. At the latest now, it becomes untasty.
Fresh and manual grinding is also highly recommended for another reason. Only in this way can the grind size be adapted to one's own needs and one's own brewing method. The grind size determines the resistance of the coffee in the puck. This must be constantly readjusted, from day to day and coffee to coffee.
Therefore: anyone who wants to improve coffee quality with simple means should first switch from pre-ground to fresh and self-ground. This is also possible "cheaply." We have tested 14 hand grinders that are suitable for filter coffee and partly for espresso.
And for the record: anyone who buys pre-ground has no control whatsoever over the visual quality of the coffee beans. Therefore, for industrially bagged ground coffee, inferior raw coffee quality is often used than for the same coffee or the same brand as whole bean coffee.
9. The best coffee in the world
And what about this cat coffee? What is its name 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 well suited to tell stories about.
They can all taste good, but they are not the best coffees in the world, merely expensive and marketing-hyped. With Monsooned Malabar, this is less problematic, and this coffee also serves a common taste profile. It tastes nutty, somewhat earthy-robusta-like, but is an Arabica. For many, an accessible espresso.
There are good Jamaica Blue Mountains. The special thing about this coffee, however, is the limited quantity and the exclusive marketing. Something has succeeded here that one would wish for all coffee regions. A positioning as a region on the world market. This includes a small wooden barrel for transport with the Jamaica Blue Mountain.
The Kopi Luwak with all its variants, on the other hand, is a highly problematic development. The Indonesian civet cat naturally eats certain quantities of coffee cherries. The gastrointestinal tract separates cherry flesh and pit. After defecating, the pit can be collected, dried, and marketed. The story is so absurd that it sells because of its quirkiness. So much so that civet cats are kept in cages and stuffed with cherries to increase the quantity of coffee production. Humans are resourceful when it comes to maximizing profit. Thus, larger animals are also stuffed with cherries and used as a fermentation channel. The coffee that finally emerges is not of special quality. The story, however, is quite wonderfully suited to be picked up by the media and people. We are very clear at this point, and finally, the language fits. What is marketed here as coffee is shit.
All these coffees are not the best coffees in the world. In fact, they reach very low scores in sensory comparison with high-quality coffees. Truly exceptional coffees like a Panama Gesha are rated with over 90 points. The Monsooned Malabar and the Kopi Luwak struggle to get beyond 75 points.
Anyone looking for the best coffees of a country will find them at Cup of Excellence. In this competition, sometimes over 100 producers per country compete in the first round to have the best coffee of the country found by a national and international jury.
