Coffee bean question – What is the difference between brands of gourmet coffee?
Question by epic_laydown: Coffee bean question – What is the difference between brands of gourmet coffee?
I know it’s taste, but what I mean is what makes them different? The beans they use? the method of grinding, or roasting, or something else? And how can I, as the consumer, find this information out? will the website tell me what beans they use, where they come from, how they roast it, etc? Or am I SOL.
Thanks for your answers.
-newbie coffee lover
Best answer:
Answer by Glenn_11
I am a coffee newbie also. I have found a great deal of good information here at this website:
http://www.coffeereview.com/
You can find reviews of coffee and where to buy fresh roasted coffee and different methods of brewing coffee.
Under the reference link you will find good info about the coffee grown in different parts of the world and their taste variations.
What makes coffee different? You stated most of them. Where the coffee is grown, how it is roasted, how finely ground, and how it is brewed.
Happy cupping.
What do you think? Answer below!
The differences are many. First, a lot of the big name companies buy up an entire ‘lot’ of coffee from a farm, cooperative or a broker. this makes their coffee ‘unique.’
Also a lot of companies blend different coffee origins, some to get a better flavor, some to mask odd flavors from the cheap beans they bought.
There are hundreds of coffee farms and plantations in the world, and no two will taste exactly alike.
Also there are several different cultivars within the coffee bean family, each again, provides it’s own flavor.
And each tree typically produces two crops a year, and each crop has it’s distinct flavors due to rain levels, temperatures, how the bean was handled at picking, how the bean was handled during processing, how the bean was handled after processing, and how the bean was handled during shipping. Was the bean allowed to get too hot intransit? did they get wet in shipping, and how long have they sat in a warehouse.
Get the picture? every bag can be an adventure in taste…
Most coffee brokers that are worth their salt will cup the bean before buying, and cup the bean after delivery. If too much has gone wrong between the two cuppings a good broker will refuse the shipment, others sell it to Floggers, MudwellHorse, Yanka or one of the other sells of slop.