How to buy coffee beans? The most complete guide to buying coffee beans Coffee rookies how to buy coffee beans

A simple guide to getting started with coffee

Hand-brewed coffee has become a craze, and many white-collar workers begin to care about the first condition of drinking coffee-how to buy coffee beans? What is the difference between coffee beans and coffee powder? Coffee beans and coffee powder, which used to be bought in professional coffee shops, are now available in many high-end supermarkets. What must be known about the basic knowledge of coffee bean purchase?

It is necessary to know the brief of purchase--

Beans or powder?

The flavor of a cup of coffee begins to take shape from roasting, grinding begins to lose, and the aroma changes every day, and freshness is almost the biggest indicator of coffee aroma. Therefore, for the purchase of coffee beans or coffee powder, the first consideration is how to maintain freshness.

If you are not a coffee enthusiast in pursuit of the ultimate taste, but use coffee as a drink for daily consumption, then the flavor preservation period given by the expert is simply: coffee beans (cooked beans) for a month in home packaging, coffee powder for a week.

Raw coffee beans go through different roasting procedures to stimulate their flavor, but roasting is a bit complex and professional for the average player, so if you are not a player who has to manually control the roasting, there is no need to buy raw beans.

When coffee beans are roasted, various flavors begin to disappear with the volatilization of water and carbon dioxide. Therefore, it is generally believed that coffee beans are best drunk within a month after baking in order to maintain the best aroma. When the roasted coffee beans are ground into powder, the contact surface with the air is increased, and the flavor will soon be lost, so experts recommend that it is best to drink it within a week after grinding in household packaging.

Single bean or commodity bean?

The so-called commercial beans are actually for single beans. For coffee enthusiasts, a single bean can try the outstanding flavor of different coffee. On the other hand, commercial beans mix individual beans with different flavors according to different proportions, and mix the finished products with a balanced and pleasant taste, just like the different emphasis of appreciation between single malt whisky and mixed whiskey. if you have a more convenient way and a more stable taste for daily drinking, some big brands of commodity beans will be a good choice.

Cargo flow, freshness is the king!

For a cup of coffee, aroma is the most direct indicator. Freshness is an important indicator to ensure that you taste the aroma of coffee.

For lovers of hand-brewed coffee, to buy single beans with different flavors, grinding and drinking is certainly the best option. But not everyone has the time and props to grind it before every cup of coffee. So in order to strike a balance between aroma and convenience, buying coffee powder packed in vacuum or canned with inert gas is a compromise. But once the vacuum package is opened, the coffee powder will come into contact with the air, so estimating the amount you drink in 2-4 weeks is the best cost-effective solution.

If you are such a buyer, the coffee powder of commercial beans is a more cost-effective choice. Because the circulation is fast and the beans are fresh, it can maintain the flavor more safely, and reduce the cost and improve the performance-to-price ratio because of the mass standardized production. For example, illy and lavazza, and even Starbucks selected beans, the quality of beans is relatively stable, 250g mainstream price is about 100 yuan, cost-effective.

Practical Tips: how to look at the label?

If you buy coffee beans (powder) in the supermarket, will you read the label? The origin, baking degree and production date are all important information about coffee beans, which will be listed on the label.

The origin is very important!

Does the place of origin matter? As a kind of agricultural product, the origin of coffee is indeed very important. Different producing areas reflect different local characteristics, different producing areas from the characteristics of beans to the production of sun washing will be different. In the packaging of coffee beans, in general, in addition to the origin, but also clearly marked on the sun or washing production methods, you can pay attention.

The method of tanning, which is widely used in Brazil, Africa and Asia, is the most common in the world. It is generally believed that sun-cured coffee beans are more mellow and richer, while water-washed beans are brighter and more sour. However, this does not mean that there is a difference between the two. For example, the Ethiopian boutique coffee Yega Xuefei is mostly washed with water.

Baking degree reflects personal preference.

Baking degree is also an indispensable item on the label. The color and flavor of beans will deepen and thicken with the increase of baking degree, but it is not that the deeper the roasting degree, the better the coffee.

In an interview with Yangcheng Evening News, a global coffee roaster once reminded that due to the deep roasting of coffee, the strong burning aroma can often cover up some bad smells, so some coffee beans of poor quality are often used to "hide clumsily" in this way; light roasting is more able to taste the subtle flavor of coffee beans themselves. But if it is roasted too lightly, the aroma of coffee beans cannot be released. Therefore, the flavor of coffee beans from the same origin will be very different with different baking degrees. How to choose to control the degree of baking is like mixing wine, which requires experience and different personal tastes.

Wen / Yangcheng Evening News reporter Lin Qingqing