How do I choose coffee beans?
How to choose coffee beans
Published 5 November 2026. Catalogue figures checked 6 November 2026.
There are 12,793 coffees on this site and 9,566 of them are in stock. Four decisions cut that to a shortlist, and they are not the four that bags and blogs spend most of their words on.
1. How you brew it
Make this decision first, because it is the one that removes the most. Roasters take the same green coffee further for espresso than for filter: a darker roast is more soluble and more forgiving under nine bars of pressure, where a filter roast is kept lighter so the acidity and fruit survive a slower brew.
Of the coffees here, 2,178 are roasted for espresso, 1,659 for filter, and 127 are sold as working either way. Only 23% of bags say anything at all, so for the majority you are reading the description and guessing — and that is the roaster’s omission, not yours.
A moka pot and an AeroPress both sit awkwardly between the two. The moka pot guide covers that case.
2. Which direction of flavour
Not which specific notes — which direction. Almost every coffee in this catalogue sits somewhere on a line between two poles: chocolate, caramel and nuts at one end, fruit, citrus and flowers at the other. Washed coffees from Central and South America tend towards the first; naturals and Ethiopians towards the second.
This is how often UK roasters reach for each family when they describe a coffee, across the 4,961 coffees that carry notes. The shape of the British market: heavy on fruity and caramel and sweet, much lighter on earthy.
One caution worth repeating: tasting notes are the roaster’s own words about what they taste. Nothing has been added to the coffee, nobody has verified the description, and we have tasted none of it. Read them as a direction of travel.
3. What you want to spend, per kilo
Per kilo, not per bag. Bags here run from 125 g to 1 kg and a £12 bag can be any of them, so bag prices are not comparable at all. The median is £39.00/kg at the cheapest bag each roaster sells, and the middle 80% of the market sits between £26.00 and £62.00.
Inside that band, price buys scarcity and processing rather than a cup you will necessarily prefer. A £62.00 geisha is rarer than a £26.00 Brazilian; whether you will like it more is a different question, and not one this site can answer — we hold no scores of any kind. What coffee should cost goes into the numbers properly.
4. How much, and how fresh
A kilo bag is around 20% cheaper per kilo than a 250 g bag, and that saving disappears if the last third goes stale before you reach it. For most households buying 250 g or 500 g more often beats buying a kilo and watching it fade.
We cannot help you with freshness, and it is the biggest hole in this site: almost no roaster in the UK publishes a roast date in a form we can read, so no page here can tell you how fresh anything is. Buy from a roaster who prints one on the bag.
What matters less than you think
Roast level. Useful in principle, unusable in practice: we can read one on 15% of bags. Most of that is our own gap, not the roasters’ — on 6,880 coffees the field reaches us as the literal word “unknown”, and only 3,955 bags print nothing. Which of those two it is matters, and the site keeps them apart. What the coffee is roasted for covers far more of the catalogue and tells you much the same thing.
Altitude and variety. Real signals for a buyer tasting fifty lots, close to noise for someone choosing one bag. Interesting once you already know what you like.
Decaf as a compromise. 906 coffees here are decaffeinated, and 605 of them say how the caffeine was taken out. Whether any of them tastes good is not something this site can tell you. How decaf is made, and what it costs goes through the methods; the decaf page lists every one with its price.
Questions
How do I choose coffee beans?
Start with how you brew, because roasters roast differently for espresso and for filter, and that single choice removes most of the catalogue. Then pick a flavour direction from the roaster's own tasting notes — chocolatey and nutty, or fruity and bright — and set a budget per kilo rather than per bag, since bag sizes are not standard. Roast level and origin matter less than people think, and most bags do not state the roast level at all.
Should I buy espresso beans or filter beans?
Buy what matches your machine, if the roaster says. Of the 12,793 coffees here, 2,178 are roasted for espresso, 1,659 for filter and 127 for either. Only 23% say anything at all, so for the rest you are guessing — and an "omni" roast is designed to work both ways.
Does the roast level matter when choosing beans?
It matters, but you usually cannot use it: we can read a roast level on only 1,958 of 12,793 coffees here, about 15%. That is mostly our gap rather than the roasters'. On 6,880 coffees the field arrives as the literal word "unknown", which is our failure to read it; only 3,955 bags say nothing at all. What the roaster says the coffee is roasted FOR — espresso or filter — has far better coverage and tells you much the same thing, since filter roasts are generally lighter.
Are expensive coffee beans better?
Not reliably. The median here is £39.00/kg and the middle 80% runs from £26.00 to £62.00 per kilo. What the extra money mostly buys is scarcity and elaborate processing, not a better cup for your taste. We hold no independent review scores or cupping scores, so this site cannot tell you a dearer coffee is a better one, and nobody should pretend a price is a quality rating.
What do tasting notes on coffee actually mean?
They are the roaster's description of what they taste, not a measurement and not an ingredient list — nothing has been added to the coffee. 4,961 of the coffees here carry notes we could group into families; the most common are fruity, caramel and sweet, chocolate. Treat them as a direction, not a promise: grind, water and recipe change the cup as much as the bean does.