There is everything out there in the coffee market: good cheap coffee, expensive good coffee, bad expensive coffee, reasonably priced good coffee and everything in between. So how can you identify high-quality coffee beans? And you can do it without having spent 20 years studying coffee beans. It's not that difficult: there are a few clues that we'll go over for you here.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – Quality
There are two - let's call them the main characteristics of high-quality coffee beans. Firstly, the product itself, of course, and secondly, the roasting. Because even if you have the best product in the world and mess up the preparation, the product is no longer of high quality. If - just as an example - you harvest high-quality truffles but then sell them in ketchup, that doesn't really go down well either. Or does it?
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – coffee bean size
High-quality coffee beans are the same size. This is mainly because they come from one farm and one harvest, and are not thrown together from many different farms. Even with blends (a mixture of coffees from several countries), care is taken to ensure that the beans are relatively the same size, as this is important when roasting them together. Otherwise, one bean will already be charred when the other is just starting to turn brown.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – optics
Let's take a general look at the visual check. You can also tell that beans are good if they are evenly colored, whole and not broken, and have no holes from insect bites. They should also be a matte brown color. If your beans are shiny with coffee oils that have leaked out, then the beans are simply no longer good. Either they were roasted for too long, causing the oils to leak out. In this case, the beans are usually already very dark brown to black in color. Or they were stored for a very long time and not properly - but even then they are no longer of high quality. The coffee oils and therefore the aromas should stay in the beans.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – smell
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans works with all of your senses. They have already passed the visual check, now it's time to smell them. Open the package and take a deep breath of the aroma. It smells of coffee and only coffee? That's a good sign. It smells burnt, of charcoal or ash - that's not a good sign. If something smells burnt, then that's exactly what it is: burnt and therefore no longer high quality. If you smell something other than coffee, then it's a sign that the harvest, coffee selection or even the roasting were not ideal.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – Aroma valve
And while we're on the subject of aroma: high-quality coffee beans are packed in a resealable package with an aroma valve. This allows the CO2 produced during roasting to escape, but no oxygen gets into the package. Because oxygen is an enemy of aromas.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – Defects
Really good coffee beans have no defects. Coffee is a natural product, which means that there is sometimes a bad coffee cherry in the harvest - even if the rest of the harvest is of high quality. However, with select coffee, these defective cherries/beans are sorted out before sale. So if you find a lot of defects in your package, no one has made the effort. The SCA has determined how many defects a good coffee can have. The following defects exist:
- Beans that have been eaten or damaged (usually by insects)
- unripe beans (recognizable by their wrinkled surface)
- broken beans (were dried too much)
- black beans (also called stink beans)
- moldy beans (were stored incorrectly)
- shell pieces (not sorted out)
- Stones or twigs in the beans
Each of these defects affects the coffee differently, mostly on the taste. The coffee can taste more bitter or bland. But it can also taste musty, rotten or fermented.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – taste
Coffee tastes like coffee and nothing else. OK, if you are experienced or even a professional, you will taste chocolatey, nutty or fruity aromas. But coffee should never taste like rubber, forest floor, leather or anything like that. These are called off-flavors and they are a clear sign of inferior coffee.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – Transparency
Transparency is also an important sign for identifying high-quality coffee beans. It is primarily about the traceability of the origin of the coffee. Type, country of origin, mixing ratio for blends, taste profile, etc. All of this should be on the coffee packaging.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – origin
Basically, the origin of the coffee should be stated on the label. The more precise, the higher the quality. Africa could be any country on the continent. Ethiopia is more precise. Yirgacheffe is just one region in Ethiopia and if the farm's name is on the packaging, then the coffee is already very high quality. Very high quality coffees sometimes even have the lot noted, i.e. the plot on the farm where the coffee plants for exactly these beans grow. The name of the farmer is also a good sign of quality.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – roasting data
Industrial roasters (which unfortunately often sell inferior coffee) usually limit themselves to printing the best-before date on the packaging because they are obliged to do so. With high-quality coffee, however, you should also know when it was roasted, because after roasting, the coffee is allowed to off-gas for a few days and then it reaches its best aroma in the first three to four months. In fact, you will only find the best-before date with us, because the roasting date is always one year before the best-before date. The degree of roasting - light, medium or dark - should also be included in the information on the packaging.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – processing and taste
Other information that indicates that you are holding high-quality coffee beans is the processing method (such as washed or natural) and the flavor profile. The altitude at which the beans are grown also plays a role in the quality - the higher a bean grows, the slower it ripens and the more energy it puts into the variety of flavors. But that does not mean that the lower it grows, the lower the quality.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – Price
And finally, the price is also an indication of the quality of the coffee - at least in one direction. If a kilo of coffee costs you less than 20 euros or even less than 10 euros, that is a clear sign that the product itself cannot be of high quality. A higher price basically indicates a higher quality: but not everything that is expensive is always of high quality. Unfortunately, we have to say that, because there are also many who sell inferior quality at a high price.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – roasting
Roasting can have a big influence on the quality of the coffee. Unfortunately, it works in both directions. In the industry, for example, cheaper and lower-quality coffee is often bought and then roasted very dark. This doesn't make it any better, but it tastes the way many people are used to drinking it: chocolatey, nutty with roasted aromas. And that sells - even if the coffee is of a lower quality.
And even if you buy high-quality green coffee, you can still mess it up when roasting. If you have no experience like me and try pan roasting, the coffee could be underdeveloped. So you didn't bring out the full range of flavors when roasting. Or you roast it too dark, so it just tastes burnt.
Recognizing high-quality coffee beans – Conclusion
There are all quality levels on the coffee market. Just because something is expensive doesn't mean it's high quality. On the other hand, there are definitely lower price limits that clearly indicate poor quality. Hopefully, with our tips, you'll be able to distinguish good coffee from bad in the future. But one of the most important decision factors is still your taste... with high-quality coffee, you at least know that those who make the coffee are well paid for their work. And for us, that's part of the overall "high-quality" package.
