How to Find the Best Gourmet Coffee Beans Online

While buying online coffee may seem impossible without a taste test first, there is a lot of information about coffee beans that you can read about. By doing this, you can read the descriptions of the beans on the website and connect that information with your personal tastes. Roast levels, the region of origin, and flavor profiles is just some of the information you can look at to determine the perfect bag of beans for you.

One of the quickest things to look at is of course the flavor profile. Reputable coffee shops online will ideally list this out on their website for the customer. Additionally, many people confused flavor profiles with flavored coffee. Flavored coffee is coffee grounds or whole beans with added flavor, often mimicking very recognizable items. For example, a flavored coffee will often be titled blueberry muffin, pumpkin spice, or apple pie. These flavors are added and cover up much of the coffee’s natural flavor and go excellent with milks and sweeteners.

A flavor profile, however, recognizes and lists the subtleties of the natural taste of coffees. This is often completed by not roasting the beans to a crisp (think light or medium roast coffees for this) and letting the natural flavors shine through. A team of seasoned roasters and coffee tasters will have tastings and cuppings of these coffees in a similar fashion to a wine tasting. Common notes of flavor during this type of tasting includes blueberries, honey suckle, dark chocolate, stone fruit, graham cracker, black pepper, and more.

The flavor profile, or sometimes called tasting notes, is found solely by the natural taste and has zero added flavor. If you see peach as a tasting note, then you can know that that there is no actual peach in it. If you see a coffee titled “Peach Cobbler Coffee,” then those beans have added flavor, artificial or natural.

A very quick way to narrow down which coffee you may be interested in is the region the beans are originated from. Each region is different from grow to roast. Some are grown in dry climates and some are grown in wet climates. Some are sunny and some are cloudy. The beans may be grown at a high altitude or a lower altitude. Another thing that changes is how they are prepared for shipment to be roasted. Some of the beans are left out to dry in the sun, some are washed, and some requires very little washing. It just depends on the region, but they all affect the flavor of the coffee.

Eventually, you will be able to see an Ethiopian bag of beans and connect that is likely a little acidic with tastes of blueberry and chocolate. Guatemala coffee is often more acidic, light, and has notes of grapefruit and graham cracker or lemon.