Here at Buy Organic Coffee we typically write about how to find, make, and enjoy the best coffee in the world. However, for far too many coffee lovers the issue is not great coffee but rather bad coffee. Problems with your cup of java start with the type of coffee you are buying and extend through how long it has been stored before it got roasted. Then the issue is how long it was on the shelf before you bought it and then how long stored it and how well you stored it before grinding the beans and brewing your coffee. Along the way the degree and quality of roasting comes into play. Very often the basic question is whether it is the roast of the coffee that is bad.
What Is the Best Coffee?
For folks who simply want a lot of caffeine in their cup to wake up in the morning and keep going all day, robusta coffee is the best choice. It has much more caffeine than arabica coffee. You are giving away the promise of better flavor and aroma but you are getting the “kick” that you want from your coffee. The bulk of this kind of coffee comes from Vietnam and Brazil. For most folks who love a great cup of coffee with excellent aroma and taste, arabica coffee is preferable. The best arabica is grown at higher altitudes in volcanic soil. There are lots of great coffees in the world that fit this criteria. However, the largest area with the greatest production of uniformly great arabica coffee is in the west of Colombia on the western slopes of the western most ridgeline of the Andes mountains. At the center of this area is the coffee triangle comprised of the departments of Caldas, Risaralda, and Quindío. However, the rich coffee growing area includes the department of Antioquia around Medellin to the north and the departments of Huila and Tolima to the south. However, Brazil produces lots of arabica as do Honduras, Mexico and other central American countries. The easiest way to make sure you are getting high quality Arabica coffee is to look for Juan Valez on the package which means the coffee is 100% Colombian.
How Long Was It Since Your Coffee Was Picked?
Coffee is freshest when it is picked and after it has been dried, processed to remove the cherry and husk and made ready for roasting. Colombia has a major harvest and a minor harvest season. Your best coffee is that which moves quickly from the mountain side to local processing to shipping to a roaster or green coffee seller near you. To avoid getting coffee that has languished in the supply chain for months or years we offer direct shipping from the Colombian coffee triangle to you. Just contact us at admin@buyorganiccoffee.org. Doing this you will avoid getting coffee that sat for months or years in storage as green coffee in the USA before being roasted and then sitting on the grocery store shelf for months before you purchase it.
How Was Your Coffee Roasted?
Roasting coffee produces and/or converts antioxidants and, on the extreme end, caramelizes the coffee. Some different flavors are produced with light to moderate roasting and many are lost. On the extreme end, most of the original flavors and aroma are lost. The problem with routinely getting a dark roast coffee is that all too often you are getting an inferior coffee bean or a stale coffee bean and cannot tell the difference because the original flavor and aroma is gone. So, one of the reasons for bad coffee is that it was roasted to within an inch of its flavor and aroma life!
Did They Ruin a Good Coffee or Disguise a Bad Coffee With Their Roasting?
You see a lot of articles today promoting a dark roast as healthier because, they claim, that a dark roast has more antioxidants. This remains to be proven. What is true is that using an excessive dark roast is a common way to disguise bad coffee that came from inferior beans, was stored too long, or processed incorrectly. To the extent that you are getting high quality coffee from places like Colombia, we suggest a light to medium roast first of all and progression to a darker roast for comparison thereafter.