​What to Brew?
The Coffee101 Beginners' Guide to Buying Great Coffee
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So, you want to buy coffee. Marvellous! But, whether you’re after delicious coffee, wanting to explore different coffees or simply trying to avoid bad coffee, where do you start and how do you decide which coffee to buy?
The good news is you just need a bit of knowledge and enough sense to avoid pre-ground coffee. (Although a healthy scepticism about anything labelled 'best before' certainly helps.)
Coffee101 can provide the essential knowledge and then you’re all set. So read on. No coffee degree is required, but there is a lot to consider and so if you'd rather just have the bullet points skip straight to the TLDR Summary.
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Where do you start?
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Some ‘Golden Rules’ for coffee buying
(AKA Coffee buying advice for beginners)
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1. Buy Beans not Pre-ground Coffee
(Whole beans or pre-ground coffee? Why is it even a question!?)
Even if you take nothing else from this guide, take this: buy whole beans, get a burr grinder, and grind them yourself.
For two reasons grinding your own coffee is essential if you want to brew the best possible coffee. Ground coffee goes stale much faster than whole beans, but having the freshest possible coffee is not only reason for buying whole beans: Grinding your own coffee gives you control over the grind size which allows you to adjust and manipulate coffee extraction to get the best results from whatever brewing method you use.
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Grind size, and how the coffee is ground, controls which flavours are extracted and how quickly. This directly effects how sour, sweet, or bitter your coffee tastes. Finer grinds expose more surface area and, depending on the brewing method, slow the flow of water, leading to higher extraction; if pushed too far this gives harsh, bitter, over‑extracted coffee. Coarser grinds have less surface area and can let water pass more quickly, so they extract less; if too coarse, the result is thin, sharp, and under‑extracted rather than sweet and rounded. Being able to vary the grind size by grinding your own coffee beans means that you can taste your coffee and then vary the grind size to fine tune the coffee extraction and brew the best possible coffee.
While you could get lucky brewing with pre-ground coffee, the chances of the grind size being an ideal match with your coffee set-up is slim, especially if you’re dialling in espresso. However, even if (it’s a big ‘if’) the pre-ground grind size works and lets you brew well, you still can’t get away from pre-ground coffee going stale.
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Top Tip: Buy buy beans and grind them yourself.
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2. Buy Fresh Coffee with a roasting date.
As with so many things, coffee peaks young and then starts on a gentle down hill slide to go stale as the magical aromatics roasting produces fade away. Worse still, leave coffee long enough and it will start going off. Flavours won’t just fade they’ll change, and what were once ‘caramel notes’ can turn into something more ‘damp cellar’.
While good storage can slow how quickly coffee goes stale, go stale it surely will. Grinding vastly increases the surface area that’s exposed to air, so once ground, what was a gentle slide turns into freefall deterioration and even the best storage won’t save ground coffee for long.
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Grinding your own in date beans gives you fresher coffee with more aroma and fuller flavour because volatile compounds haven't had time to fade.
Ideally, you want to use coffee beans that were roasted 2 to 8 weeks prior to brewing; maybe a week or so less for very dark roasts. Obviously you need to have the roast date to know how when your 2 to 8 weeks started. So, Top Tip: Buy coffee which has a roasting date on the packaging.
Quality coffees usually brag about their roast date - look out for it! Supermarket coffee, on the other hand, prefers to hide behind ‘best before’ dates. 'Best before' only means your coffee is still safe to consume. But just because it’s safe it doesn’t necessarily mean it tastes as good as it should, let alone is anywhere near ‘best’ as best relates to the quality of coffee you can brew.
Having said all that Coffee101 has enjoyed some very nice dark roast coffee brewed from supermarket bought beans which only had a best before date. Just because there’s no roasting date doesn’t automatically mean there’s no chance of brewing some decent coffee. But buying without a roast date is a compromise. It means you’re gambling with the beans not being fresh enough to make the best possible coffee.
However, to complicte things further, coffee can also be too fresh. Newly roasted coffee releases lots of carbon dioxide. Hence coffee bags often having built in valves to release the pressure and stop the bag bursting.
Beware, especially for espresso, too-fresh coffee can be a diva full of gas, tricky to brew, and likely to throw a tantrum and and lets go of lots CO2 as soon as it meets hot water. Top Tip: Let coffee rest a week or so after roasting before you brew. After that, you’ve got a golden window of 4–6 weeks (maybe a bit less for dark roast) before it starts to lose its sparkle.
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3. Buy traceable coffee (Know your beans)
Basically, traceability just means the coffee gives details of where it was grown and how it got to you. Traceable coffee is usually better quality because why bother tracking coffee beans all the way from farm to the you unless they're worth shouting about. Buying coffee that comes from somewhere specific: a farm, a co-op, or at least a region stacks the odds of getting the best coffee in your favour.
Saying "Coffee from Brazil" is a bit like saying "Wine from France". A wine labelled Bordeaux tells you more, and one that names the specific vineyard gives you even greater confidence in its quality. The same applies to coffee. A bag marked Sul de Minas, Brazil is generally a safer bet than one that only says Brazilian coffee. If the labelling lists the farm where the coffee was grown then better still; the odds of the coffee being good are high.
The bean’s origin impact the coffee flavour, so even when beginning with home brewing it might be worth having some initial awareness of how the flavours vary depending on where the beans are grown:
Ethiopian coffee usually produces floral and fruity notes.
Central America: Bright acidity, citrus undertones.
South America: Nutty, chocolatey, balanced flavours.
Africa (other than Ethiopia): Complex, wine-like acidity.
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For beginners, diving deeply into regional distinctions might feel like running before you can walk. None-the-less those extra details on a label are a promising sign that the beans come from producers who care about quality and make it worth choosing coffee with lots of detail on its labelling.
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4. Seasonality: Beans Have a Calendar Too
Because coffee is seasonal and different countries harvest at different times, you might hear advice to buy coffee from a shop or roaster that’s regularly changing what they are selling. While that’s a good sign they’re keeping things fresh and not just dusting off last year’s leftovers, only buying from roasters who regularly change their coffee is probably just going to add a marginal benefit at best.
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Where to Buy Coffee
And what you’re really getting)
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Supermarkets: The Land of Convenience (and Compromise)
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Pros: Cheap, easy, and you’re probably already there buying milk.
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Cons: Coffee is treated like everything in the supermarket supply chain. It could be months old before it hits your coffee mug. Freshness? Usually all you get is a best before date and so you’re left playing coffee bean roulette.
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Coffee Shops: Your Friendly Neighbourhood Bean Dealer
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Pros: Real humans to talk to, should be fresher beans, and you can often get real live recommendations (not just Google reviews).
Buy from a coffee shop and you can try a coffee while you’re there and find something you like.
Trying before you buy also shows you what your coffee is meant to taste like so you can test your home brewing results. If your coffee disappoints it’s then worth looking at your brewing before blaming the beans.
Buying locally supports local business
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Cons: Slightly pricier (but then you’re getting quality and advice.)
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Online: The Coffee Wonderland
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Pros: Endless choice, super fresh beans (often roasted to order), and you can shop in your pyjamas.
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Cons: The huge choice can be overwhelming.
Requires a bit more planning—Online beans often arrive so quickly and freshly roasted you’ve still got to wait to use them.
Online subscriptions are great if you want coffee to magically appear at your door once you’ve settled on what you want to buy, but don’t rush to get a subscription. Mix it up to start with! You can get a subscription for consistency once you’ve tried a few.
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The Too Long Didn't Read
TLDR Beginner’s Guide to Buying Coffee
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Buy beans not pre-ground coffee.
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Look for roast dates and buy fresh.
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It’s well worth paying more for quality
so look out for fresh, traceable, 100% Arabica coffee beans. -
Read and interpret the flavour notes. Blended dark roasts with chocolatey, caramel tasting notes are easier to brew and are a good bet for good beginner’s coffee (and delicious long-term results).
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While light roasts open a whole new world of coffee flavours they can be a challenge to brew well when you’re starting out.
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Don’t be misled by supermarket strength guides and coffee styles.
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It’s worth ‘trying before you buy’ with beans from a local roaster.
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Finally, let’s not forget sustainability and ethical coffee drinking.
Thank you and welcome to any early visitors to Coffee101.
The site is a work-in-progress with more added every week -please do look in again.
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Decoding Coffee Labels
The Secret Language of Coffee Labeling
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"100% Arabica"
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Basically, there are two main types of coffee beans. Arabica are the higher quality beans and so 100% Arabica is a good sign. Most coffee packaging would advertise that it contains Arabica and so if it’s a cheap coffee and isn’t mentioning Arabica, beware. It’s likely to be cheap for good reasons.
Great beans badly brewed can still make bad coffee. Sadly the opposite isnt true, and bad beans can't make great coffee. So Top Tip: Look out for at least a high proportion of Arabica beans in a coffee blend. Better still go for 100% Arabica coffee and avoid coffees that don't mention Arabica beans.
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Dark Roast vs Light Roast Coffees
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Dark roasts taste like the coffee most of us grew up with the strong, bold classic flavour we would all expect when someone says “coffee.”
Light roasts are a whole new ball game with floral, fruity, tangy notes and a world of flavours which can surprise you. Sometimes flavours can be so delicate and bright you might wonder if you’ve accidentally brewed a cup of fancy tea instead of coffee!
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Light and dark coffee roasts differ primarily in how long and at what temperature the beans are roasted, resulting in distinct flavours and characteristics. Light roasting preserves the bean's original flavour, which often include bright acidity, floral or fruity notes, and a lighter body which offers a crisp, vibrant taste. In contrast, dark roast coffee has a fuller body and bolder, more robust flavours which are developed by the roasting process. Dark roasts tend to be less acidic, featuring chocolatey, caramelized, or smoky notes with a smoother, sometimes bittersweet finish. Ultimately, light roasts highlight the bean’s natural complexity, while dark roasts deliver the classic, intense coffee experience.
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Light roast coffee could be likened to a crisp dry Sauvignon Blanc and dark roasts to a pint of Guinness. Medium roast aims to combine the best of both, and tastes better than it sounds!
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Coffee Strength.
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Supermarket coffee loves a ‘strength scale’ (usually 1-5). Spoiler: A strength scale on a coffee label is entirely about how dark the beans are roasted, and it’s nothing to do with how much caffeine will hit your bloodstream. A stong blend of really dark roasted nutty, chocolatey beans could score a ‘5’ on a ‘strength scale’, while a subtle, floral, light roast might be a ‘2’ and yet light roast beans often have more caffeine than the dark roasts.
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When we talk about how strong a cup of coffee is we should really be talking about how much coffee is dissolved in the brewing water. If we add more water the coffee gets weaker. Obviously, there's a link between the taste of the coffee and how strong or weak it is. Strong coffee has a more concentrated taste. Dark roast beans tend to make coffee with a stronger flavour, where as light roasts tend to produce more delicate flavours. However, it's probably a bit misleading to give coffee beans a strength scale. Lots of water added to the strongest coffees would dilute the strong coffee down down to a very weak coffee. How strong or weak the coffee turns out is nothing to do with the beans that made the coffee. It's entirely to do with the amount of water in the coffee.
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Flavour Descriptions:
It’s not just marketing hype
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‘Light, floral, delicate’ means you can expect a coffee lighter body and more acidity. If you want your coffee to taste like, well, more coffee and less like Sauvignon Blanc, maybe skip these for now, especially as they can be a challenge to brew.
‘Creamy, rich, full-bodied’: More texture, less acidity. These are your safe bets and great beginners’ beans, especially when they are blende of beans which also talk about caramel, nutty and chocolate flavours as well as the creamy textures.
‘Fruity (citrus, berry)’: Tangy and bright. Good if you like a bit of zing, but going down the roasting scale towards more light roast coffee increases the challenge of successfully brewing with them. Dark roasts are far more forgiving and easier to brew.
‘Cooked fruit, candied, jammy’: Some fruitiness, but more mellow and getting easier to brew.
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Coffee Style
It is just marketing hype
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Supermarket coffee, especially, often comes labelled as “Italian Style,” “French Style,” or “Espresso Style,” but honestly, it’s mostly just fancy-sounding nonsense. It’s a vague mash-up of roast, blend, and brewing method that doesn’t really mean much. It’s clever marketing designed to stir up warm, fuzzy memories and trying to get you to splash out on their beans.
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Processing Method:
Washed vs Natural
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Before the coffee beans are roasted the coffee berry's are processed to extract the bean from the coffee cherry. It can be processed in different ways, and how its processed effects the flavour of a coffee.
Washing the beans produces a cleaner, more classic coffee taste. and a coffee that's more straightforward to brew. A natural drying process drys the beans inside the coffee berry and leads to funky, sometimes boozy flavours (think pineapple, mango, or “what on earth is that?”). It's not for everyone an probably not something to start with because they're hard to brew with, especially as naturally processed beans are usually lightly roasted which further adds to the difficulty of brewing with them.
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Price: Pay for Quality
(But even more expensive can get counterproductive.)
I suppose there may be some honourable exceptions and bargains out there, but if so, I haven't found them. But usually buying cheap, bargain basement beans limits the quality of the coffee you can brew so it’s worth paying more to buy fresher, traceable and sustainable better-quality beans.
However, paying even more for premium speciality coffess can take you into some very strange places. High-end light roast coffees can be wild; think fruit salad in a cup! If you want something more like classic coffee, save the “funky” stuff for when you’re feeling adventurous after you’ve acquired a bit of practice and are consistently brewing great coffee. (Unless you’re desperate for some fruit salad in a cup. In which case no judgement and good luck learning to brew with it).
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Wrapping Up: Your Coffee Adventure Awaits
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There you have it: the Coffee101 beginner’s guide to buying coffee. Remember, nobody finds their perfect coffee the first time. And anyway wouldn’t it be boring if you did, coffee being a journey, not a destination and all that!
Experiment, have fun, don’t be afraid to drink the occasional bad cup (it builds character, allegedly), and your taste buds, and future self will thank you. Eventually.
Top Tip: Apply the above and you buy beans with confidence. And remember: SWERVE THE PRE-GROUND.
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