Coffee quality or more accurately the quality of coffee beans is the most crucial factor when looking to buy some gourmet specialty coffee. You will need to learn some of the fundamental aspects of good quality coffee. It’s important for you to understand that for that fantastic cup of coffee you may need to follow some standard coffee facts that will enable you to brew an ideal cup of coffee.
Coffee Quality Issues
- Time – when was the coffee ground?
- Time – when were the coffee beans roasted?
- How clean is the brewing equipment?
- What quality are the coffee beans?
- What kind of water is the best for that coffee?
Well, of course you can find other crucial factors to look for, but if you recognize the basic ones, you will be able to find quality beans for your coffee.
One thing is a fact: A lesser coffee which has been freshly roasted and ground is numerous times greater than coffee which has been roasted and ground then left to get stale – no matter how great it was when it was fresh.
So we decided to present you with a coffee quality guide that will help you find excellent coffee on your own when browsing through the supermarkets or other coffee shops.
In general, most coffee cans stacked on supermarket shelves are stale and use the inferior, bland-at-best Robusta bean. You might, as a coffee drinker, want to move up to something far better without any excessive fuss or expense.
So, are whole-bean coffees sold in Lucite bins or foil bags worth their additional charge plus the effort it takes to grind them? And if they’re worth the added cost and trouble, which bags or bins are likely to be the best value?
Coffee Inspector will take on this question by way of a series of reviews that survey coffees obtainable inside the larger shops and specialty chains of metropolitan areas around North America.
30 + Robusta-Free Candidates
For this article, we will present 30 coffees from NY area locations ranging from price-sensitive supermarkets to high-end gourmet food shops to a chain of natural food merchants and a couple of dedicated specialty coffee chains.
Our main criterion for selecting the particular coffees themselves was their declared absence of beans from the Robusta species. The finest Robusta coffees might be valuable additions to high-end blends, but the sort of Robusta existing in commercial canned coffees are usually not the superior kind. Consequently the absence of Robusta coffees would seem to be an excellent preliminary way to identify coffees that are “better than” cheap canned possibilities.
Much more Money, Much more Distinction
Predictably, we found a large range of quality among these all-Arabica coffees, from the outright bad tasting “Original” blend from Eight O’Clock Coffee to the nicely refined single-origin coffees from Bucks County and Allegro Coffee. Our sampling suggested, in general, that the additional money you pay for the superior blend results in much more interesting coffee.
Single Origins Prevail over Blends
It’s reassuring for that coffee aficionado that the highest rated coffees were all single-origin offerings as opposed to blends. Kenya and Guatemala coffees were particularly admired among insiders and accounted for five of the seven highest rated samples.
Ethiopia, which endured a poor quality crop last year (coffee origins, like wine origins, have fine years and bad depending on seasonal weather), produced only middle-of-the-pack coffees, none of which is reviewed here. Colombia, which until recently was known for marketing very good but standard commodity coffee rather than singular and exceptional coffees, fared passably well with ratings ranging from a high of 87 to a low of 78. Neither in the highest rated Colombia’s (87 and 86) was a standard-issue one-size-fits-all Colombia, nonetheless. A single was a Popoyan, from a particularly admired growing region, and the other was a coffee that was aged for eight years.
Specialty Is Still The King
It’s tempting to draw conclusions from this survey about which coffee brands or roasting companies deliver greater or far more distinctive coffees than which other brands or companies, but given the small number of arbitrarily selected coffees we sampled from each brand or roaster, such detailed speculation seems unfair. On the other hand, a study in the ratings does suggest that coffee companies with a clear specialty heritage (Bucks County, Green Mountain, Allegro, plus the much smaller Martinez, Porto Rico, and McNulty’s), in general do a much more consistent job of generating high quality and distinction than do large “commercial” coffee companies that are attempting to move into specialty territory with new brands or presentations (Eight O’Clock Coffee’s Royale brand, Kraft Foods’ Maxwell House Premium Cup, Sara Lee’s Chock full o’ Nuts New York Classics, Procter & Gamble’s Folgers Whole Bean). The exception towards generally superior performance of brands with a specialty background may be specialty giant Starbucks’ line of supermarket coffees. Despite the fact that we included only one Starbucks sample in this cupping (House Blend, rated 80), my previous cups of Starbucks supermarket coffees support the suspicion that the finest Starbucks whole-bean coffees are seasonally featured single-origin selections sold in Starbucks stores and cafes, whereas Starbucks branded supermarket coffees tend to be lackluster and dominated by a clumsy, overbearing roast.
We feel that we should point out that every coffee that scored over 80 in this review is a good value when compared to prices prevailing for most other beverages. Coffee production is a labor-intensive undertaking. The fruit is hand picked, and the beans or seeds subsequently are subjected to a lot more than a dozen demanding procedures, from fruit removal as a result of cleaning, grading and roasting. Yet, as our survey shows, very good coffees are sold for under $5.00 per pound, or just about seven cents per cup brewed.
For absolute freshness when buying in a coffee house, it’s far better to buy popular blends that move off the shelf quickly – while buying in a supermarket, vacuum packaged containers with an expiration date are your best bet though all canned coffee is probably going to be stale to an extent.
It should be noted that in order to be able to vacuum pack coffee, industrial coffee producers actually let the coffee sit for a while before it can be packed. As soon as coffee is roasted it starts to release CO2, in a process called outgassing. This can actually aid to protect the bean from going stale.
This outgassing is the reason that you sometimes see one-way valves on coffee bags. These valves allow the CO2 to escape, while keeping oxygen from entering the bag.
Additionally, it should be noted that coffee is at its best after a few hours rest. This is where an expert in the coffee industry can help you. As a general rule of thumb, most coffees are improved with a rest time of about 12 to 24 hours. Some coffees, especially those that are musty or earthy coffees, will actually mellow for that first two to three days – making a much longer rest superior.
A final point to remember when looking for the best coffee quality is that for the best results, grind your own coffee. Buying fresh and then having it ground completely defeats the purpose. Ground coffee only lasts a few hours or a single day at the most.