When it comes to making great a great cup of coffee, it all starts with the beans – the fresher the bean, the better the coffee.
So if you want the best cup of coffee available, the type of bean matters (more on this in a moment), but so does the bean’s freshness. So if looking for a roaster local to you, find one that will verify the bean’s roasting date, and it should be no longer than a week before they sell the bag of beans to you. (You also may want to skip roasters who store their coffee in open containers – the beans will turn stale more quickly than beans kept in airtight containers.
There pretty much are just two – only two! – types of coffee beans: Robusta and Arabica. Robusta beans tend to be a light, pale green with a brown tint, while Arabica beans are a deep green and also a bit bigger than their Robusta cousins.
Arabica beans are grown at high altitudes and the coffee brewed from them tends to taste less bitter and richer than Robusta coffee. Robusta beans often are very economical – they yield more fruit – and often are used in coffee blends.
Most coffee grown on the planet is Arabica but be warned: just because it’s Arabica doesn’t mean it’s great coffee. For example, while Brazilian farmers tend to grow great coffee, a large part of the Arabica grown there isn’t of good quality. In fact, the coffee trade will use the term “Rioy” (from Rio de Janiero) to note this type of pungent Arabica coffee.
The “Best” Coffee is the One You Decide is Best
You’re the one who gets to decide which coffee is best based on what you like. If you like dark roast, that’s the best type of coffee for you. If you love coffee with a bit of bite or bitterness to it, the Robusta bean could be your go-to.
Whatever bean you prefer, just make sure it’s fresh. To become your cup of coffee, a coffee bean is first roasted, then allowed to cool and then ground up and put in packaging. Purchase a can of coffee at your neighborhood grocery store and it could well be weeks – possibly even months – since the beans inside were roasted.
Which is problematic because a coffee bean starts to lose its flavor as soon as it’s roasted because its volatile oils – which are what gives coffee its flavor – evaporate as soon as they come into contact with the air.
To ascertain how fresh the coffee is, check for:
- Where it was grown,
- Its harvest date and
- The date it was roasted (this is the most important of the three).
You also will want to buy coffee in bags, not cans. You will want to buy coffee in bags that have round valves on the front of the bag because the valve (always a one-way valve) allows gases that come out of the newly roasted bean to escape as needed (otherwise the bag would tear, possibly even explode), but not letting any air into the bag.
Ubean Coffee bags have that valve. It’s just one more way we work to ensure your cup of coffee is made of the freshest beans possible. Try some Ubean Coffee for yourself!