Tips for buying coffee beans | How to choose from a dazzling array of coffee beans?

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In the age of online shopping, facing the dazzling array of products, coffee beans are the key to drinking good coffee. It definitely requires certain skills to buy good coffee beans online. Friends, come and train your eyes with me.

Although we cannot see the actual product before purchasing and cannot perform the selection steps such as looking, smelling, peeling and chewing, we can still make selections based on the following aspects when shopping online. Of course, these aspects also apply to purchases in physical stores.

A. Origin

On the Internet, some stores may use coffee beans that are not from the place of origin, such as some Blue Mountain coffee, but its origin is not Jamaica. There are also cases where the bag only has Colombia or Brazil on it, but no specific estate information. These are usually coffee beans from major producing areas. Coffee from origin is also divided into commercial grade and boutique grade, so not all beans that say Ethiopia are boutique beans. It is best to be specific to the producing area. Beans that can be traced back to the origin are usually not too bad. If you are not very picky, you can try the flavors from different origins.

How to understand coffee names like "Ethiopia Sun-dried G1 Sidamohambella Oiran 2.0"?

Coffee beans have obvious regional characteristics. Before buying, you should understand the flavor of coffee beans. Coffee labels are like red wine labels. Generally, you can get a lot of information about the flavor of coffee from the labels. We see the name of this coffee: Ethiopian Sun-dried Sida Mohambela Oiran 2.0, and we can get the following information: Country: Ethiopia, Origin: Sida Mohambela, Grade: G1, Processing method: Sun-dried, and the name is Oiran 2.0

If the beans you buy only have Ethiopia on them and no other information, they are usually from a major producing area.

B. Packaging date (baking date)

Pay attention to whether the packaging date is recent. Generally, the shelf life of green coffee beans is one to two years, and the shelf life of roasted beans is within two months. Therefore, you should choose freshly roasted coffee beans and use them up within the shelf life after purchase. Only in this way can you enjoy the most charming aroma and rich taste of coffee.

Freshly roasted coffee beans contain a lot of gas and have active respiration. During extraction, the gas in the beans is released, and what we see are beautiful and plump bubbles. However, for some lighter roasted beans, the bubbles are not so obvious.

C. Stores and brands

Needless to say, some coffee may be mixed with other types of coffee to reduce costs. So be careful. For example, mixing cheaper coffee beans with more expensive coffee beans, or mixing coffee beans of the same variety but poor quality with good quality coffee beans, will seriously affect the taste. So when buying coffee beans, try to choose a guaranteed store or brand. The popular home-roasted coffee beans in China are fresher than those bought in supermarkets. Choose a coffee shop you can trust.

However, many people say that they find the drink delicious when they try it on site, but the flavor is not good when they buy it home and cook it. This may be due to the following reasons:

• First, the particle homogeneity of home grinders and commercial grinders is different, in terms of uniformity and coarseness;

• In addition, the water quality used by some coffee shops may be relatively better than the tap water at home;

• For hand-brewed coffee, the material of the filter cup, the material of the hand-brew pot, etc. will have some impact.