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I have sinned. I committed the cardinal mistake. Instead of using the best coffee beans I could afford with my budget or anything even remotely close. I used some very mediocre coffee beans. For over a week. I spent the whole time complaining that the coffee tasted so bad every morning and trying different techniques.
It really was a journey of mistakes. I’ve started filtering out the fines, tried different temperatures, different ratios, and a whole host of other not-beginner techniques in my pour over process. And every cup was bleh. Too bitter, too harsh, no clear flavors. This went on for over a week. Why would I do this to myself?
You keep learning a lesson until you’ve learned it. And the lesson here is bad coffee is bad and there’s nothing you can do to make it anything else. There’s no compensating for really bad coffee beans.
The Best Coffee Beans vs Bad Coffee and All the Rest
What makes the best coffee beans good, and everything else less good? Let’s start with the basics.
Arabica beans tend to have clearer flavor than Robusta beans, because the harsher climates that Robusta can accommodate produce harsher, more astringent beans, which masks other, more delicious flavors.
Freshness is key: Beans that come in a bag with a roast date on it let you know how fresh. Beans without a roast date are just a big black box of uncertainty. This is where I went and routinely go wrong. You want beans roasted in the last few weeks. Anything more than a month out is going to taste worse.
Whole bean coffee is required for freshness: if you buy ground coffee, you have even less control over its freshness. Once ground, the inside of the coffee is exposed to the air and starts to oxidize, losing flavor and getting stale. If you buy whole bean coffee and grind it right before brewing, it will taste much fresher.
One essential note. The best coffee bean is the one that you prefer. With all the variety available, coffee is a lot like food – everyone can have a different, equally valid favorite. But the type and freshness of roast and grind will be consistent across all of them.
In addition, one less simple characteristic is true for all of the best coffee beans: roast quality.
This isn’t about the level of roast–light, medium, or dark–where the right roast level is the one that matches personal preference, brew method, and the best way to bring out the bean’s flavors. Rather, roast quality is about being roasted properly, lovingly, attentively. The opposite is a roasting process that is rushed, imprecise, inconsistent, etc. Quality of roasting gets sacrificed in the preparation of inexpensive coffee, because it lets producers make their process more efficient and quick.
So to recap, my bad coffee beans were not roasted on any discernible date, meaning probably at least six months ago, nor roasted well – all of them burnt. Even though I ground them myself, freshness was already an impossibility.
How Did I Stray So Far from the Fundamentals of Great Coffee?
After enjoying so so much delicious, sometimes affordable coffee across Japan last fall, I was high on the Hario V60 dripper I had bought, and eager to make the best pour over coffee at home that I could. I got so fixated on how much I could improve my technique by:
- Better brew ratio: 16:1 using 14 grams of coffee with 224g of water
- Using a fine mesh filter to remove the super fine grinds that many grinders (including mine, which I absolutely love – shop it here – this is an Amazon affiliate link) leave behind. The finer grinds get over-brewed and add too much extra bitterness
- Fancy timing and swirling technique to really ensure even, consistent immersion and prevent channeling.
I fixated on all these techniques and figured I could skimp on beans, so I didn’t buy the best coffee beans for my budget.
What Are the Best Coffee Beans for Me?
I almost always brew pour over, so the best coffee beans for me are easier to identify. I need a light or medium roast, and I prefer medium–usually personally I like fruitier, more acidic coffees, with lots of body, as opposed to the darker, richer flavors. My preferred beans are pretty common for Central American coffee. That’s a bonus because it means I can find something grown and roasted VERY locally.
Another confession. That’s about as picky as I get. Lots of coffee aficionados have MUCH more specific preferences about growth altitude, fermentation process, and several other variables. But I am usually happy if it’s fresh, balanced, and flavorful.
Here are a few of the best coffee beans for me. These are the links I share with loved ones when the holidays come around. (none of these are affiliate links. Yet?)
Medium-roast USDA organic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from Volcanica ($18.99)
Medium-roast Single Origin Central American from Lifeboost ($27.95)
Your own best coffee beans will depend on how you like to brew and your flavor preferences. But if you want an affordable starting point, either of those options will not disappoint. These check all my boxes for quality and coming from an ethical company.
