How to Select the Best Coffee Beans?
You may spend thousands on a coffee machine or use different techniques. But the secret to a flavorful coffee is freshly grounded beans. Believe it or not, even the best coffee machines may fail to give the taste you’re looking for just because you did not use the right beans.
But choosing the right beans is much more than going to the supermarket and getting a pack of them. For the best coffee drinking experience, you must get the beans that suit your taste and preference. If you don’t know how to go about it, use the following guide to pick the right coffee beans.
Jump to a Heading
How to Select the Right Coffee Beans?
Variety: Robusta or Arabica?
Before you go into the other details, you must know the most common varieties of coffee beans: Robusta and Arabica. As the name suggests, Robusta has a strong, full-bodied flavorand is bitter.
Arabica, on the other hand, has a slightly acidic and sweet flavor. But not all the beans taste similar and will have a different taste depending upon where they are harvested. Factors like climate, rainfall, altitude, and soil significantly affect the aroma and flavor of your resulting brew.
Roast Profile: Light, Medium, Or Dark?
The roast profile depends upon how you like your coffee. Roasting is pertinent to bring the flavors out of the coffee beans. Usually, coffee beans are French roasted or Italian roasted. Light roast beans are roasted for a shorter time, recognizable by their golden color. They have a smooth flavor with less bitterness. But if you want a bold and bitter flavor, you can go for darker roasts. The medium roast has a nutty flavor but less caffeine than the light roast and more from the dark roast.
Single-Origin Or Blended?
Coffee beans sourced from a single location, region or country are single-origin coffee beans. Most of the best coffee beans are sourced from a single origin, grown in a specific climate, and micro-conditions in a farm. These are seasonal and grown in smaller batches. Each batch of single-origin coffee beans has a defined and consistent flavor. For example, Jamaican Blue Mountain has a smooth and mellow aftertaste, while a Kenyan AA has a rounded body, nutty flavor.
Blended coffee beans are like a harmony of flavorful notes such as citrus, hazelnut, chocolate, and more. In this, the roaster mixes coffee beans sourced from two to four different locations to get a unique blend of smoothness, aroma, and taste. A blended coffee can also be a mix of Arabica and Robusta beans. You can choose a single origin or blended coffee based on your preferences.
Finally, don’t forget to check the roasting date on the bag. The beans need to be recently roasted if you want to get the best flavors. Coffee is a perishable item that loses its taste very soon, especially when it comes in contact with oxygen, heat, or moisture.
If the coffee beans have been on the shelf for more than a few weeks, they will not have the same intensity, vibrancy, and flavor that fresh beans will have. So, do keep all these things in your mind while buying the best coffee beans.
