A common question among amateur coffee consumers is how to choose the best coffee to drink at home? Well, that and other related questions we will deal with in the following article:
First of all, some important points must be clarified:
Always look for Arabica species
Arabica coffees are the highest quality and best-tasting coffee beans, you may see another common species, robustas is not a coffee that I personally recommend, since it tastes more bitter and with notes that are usually difficult to assimilate without adding sugar. through. Basically not the coffee you want for breakfast!
DO NOT DRINK / BUY COFFEE TORRADO
So in capital letters so that it has more impact, if you drink roasted coffee you are putting coffee in your body that due to its composition is carcinogenic, and with a detestable taste (Only milk and sugar in quantity could make it acceptable, which is what usually happens). Roasted coffee is the worst of the worst for the simple fact that it is roasted with sugar at levels that are not healthy for humans, this in order to cover grain imperfections and make it more durable, thus many companies manage to lower costs and sell almost any grain and go unnoticed.
Commercial coffee is not going to be as good as a local roaster walter from the motofeca. Local roaster from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This is a key point that must be taken into account, although the coffee species will be a determinant of how rich the coffee is, you need to know that the coffee roasted in your area will be of much higher quality, simply because It is much fresher than the one you will get in the supermarket that is close to your home, these tend to have mass-produced coffees that do not ensure the excellence of the product, it is of low quality due to the type of coffee that is usually used in large brands do not have the proper treatment prior to the final consumer before being on the shelves.
Coffee is purchased Ground or Whole
This is a good question, usually, the coffee that they usually sell anywhere is ground because it makes the consumer’s work much easier, since not many people have a grinder so they only prepare the coffee directly, this is fine but believe me, buying coffee In beans and grinding it at the moment is the best thing that can happen to you since you are going to consume a fresher coffee, because it has not been exposed to oxygen, that coffee with a greater contact surface usually loses its fragrance and organoleptic properties (Flavor, color, aroma) are affected faster than when being beans, The difference is enormous, the coffee is ground a moment before drinking it a month before.
Is there an option to buy good coffee at the supermarket?
By clarifying the previous points, I do not want to take away your hopes of having a delicious cup of coffee, but we are going to minimize the impact of the freshness that there is in a supermarket by searching the packaging for clues on the label to determine if we can get some good coffee by following these recommendations below.
The country where it comes from:
This is a point that is quite important because the best coffee varieties usually grow in countries with fertile soils and suitable climatic conditions and temperatures. Some examples of these that produce good coffee are Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Panama, Ecuador, Brazil, Ethiopia, Guatemala, El Salvador among others. The common of these is that they have temperate climates and their soils are very fertile.
The height:
Height is one of the indicators that I like the most to intuit if coffee is going to be good since it correlates that the coffees with better flavor tend to have higher heights. The heights you should look for range from 1500 masl to 2200 masl
The varietal:
The varietal is more to do with the type of arabic coffee bean you are going to drink. There are many depending on the region, but I’m going to leave you the most common ones that usually have a very good flavor.
· Caturra
· Catuai
· Patch
· Castle
· Bourbon
· Tabi
Toasting date
As we said at the beginning, one of the strongest reasons to get good coffee is that it is fresh. For this we are going to look for the roasting date to know how long it has from that moment until it is going to be consumed, ideally we want a coffee to consume before 3 months if it is already ground, if not you can consume it up to a maximum of 6 months later roasted, so it has some flavor.
Toasting level
Since the coffee must be roasted to later extract the flavors more easily, the level at which it is roasted also influences the flavor, usually commercial coffees to ensure a longer duration usually roast the coffee to almost untouchable levels which is not good or healthy for your health, therefore it is better that you make sure that its color is like that of an almond (medium roast) that the most delicate flavors of coffee tend to express better. If the coffee is toasted more than necessary, these flavors that I was commenting on tend to overshadow and highlight the burnt flavors.