Buying Coffee for Beginners #4

Okay, you’re faced with the important choice of buying new coffee (beans). Do you actually know what to look out for? It’s quite difficult to determine exactly how a bag of coffee beans from the supermarket or coffee shop will taste.

Coffee expert and Dutch Aeropress champion Edward from Trakteren Koffie in Amsterdam helps you develop your palate and translate it into a purchase.

Grinding coffee #4

Most people don’t know that every type of coffee requires its own specific grind. And to make things even more complicated: every brewing method also requires its own grind.

An example? If you make espresso with coffee ground for filter brewing, the grind is too coarse and the water is pushed through the coffee too quickly. The result is that your cup doesn’t get enough time to extract the flavors from the beans, which means your coffee will lack flavor.

Not everyone has a coffee grinder at home, so having coffee ground in advance at a shop is very common. But keep in mind that the quality of pre-ground coffee deteriorates drastically very quickly. When you grind coffee in advance, you divide the coffee bean into hundreds of tiny pieces. This increases the surface area that comes into contact with oxygen and, well, that’s the archenemy of fresh coffee.

So, are you in the shop? Tell them what kind of coffee you’re going to make and which machine you have at home. Two additional variables to take into account. 

Read the coffee buying guide #1 here, #2 here, and #3 to become a coffee expert.

Thanks to Edward Beumer from Trakteren Koffie.

Words: Nora van den Heuvel
Image: Shutterstock