How to Choose the Right Coffee Beans (Without Getting Overwhelmed)

If you’ve ever stood in front of a shelf of coffee beans wondering which one to buy, you’re not alone.

Single origin, blends, light roast, dark roast, filter, espresso… the options can feel a bit overwhelming.

After many years working on the coffee bar and talking with customers every day, one thing has become very clear to me: there is no single coffee that works for everyone.

Coffee is incredibly personal.

How you drink it, how you brew it, and what flavours you enjoy will completely shape which beans will work best for you. When someone asks me what coffee they should buy, I almost never start by talking about origin or roast level.

Instead, I ask two simple questions.

1. Do you drink your coffee with milk or black?

This is always the first question.

Milk changes everything.

If you add milk to your coffee — whether it’s a flat white, cappuccino or latte — the coffee needs to have enough depth, flavour and strength to carry through the milk. Otherwise it can taste a bit washed out.

Coffees designed to pair well with milk are usually slightly more developed (a darker roast). This brings out flavours like chocolate, caramel and nuts, which hold their own alongside milk.

Our Rhythm Blend is a good example of this style of coffee. It has the kind of richness and depth that works beautifully in milk-based drinks.

On the other hand, if someone drinks their coffee black, the experience is completely different. Without milk, you start to notice more of the delicate flavours in the coffee — fruit, florals, acidity and sweetness.

Those flavours really shine when the coffee is roasted a little lighter.

2. How do you make coffee at home?

The second question I always ask is how someone brews their coffee.

Different brewing methods extract flavour in very different ways, which means some coffees work better than others depending on the method.

For example, someone brewing coffee with an AeroPress will often enjoy a slightly different coffee than someone using a traditional espresso machine.

And if someone is brewing using a filter method — like a V60, batch brewer, or Chemex — I almost always recommend a single origin coffee or a lighter roast.

These coffees are roasted specifically to highlight clarity, fruit and acidity, which really shine in filter brewing.

At the moment I’ve been loving our Ethiopia Bright Roast as a V60. We actually drank so much of it on a recent holiday that it has become one of those coffees I now associate with slow mornings and good conversations.

That’s another beautiful thing about coffee — it often becomes tied to memories.

When one household drinks coffee in different ways

Of course, many homes have more than one coffee drinker.

One person might love a long black while someone else wants a flat white. One person might be using an AeroPress while another is pulling shots on an espresso machine.

When that’s the case, I usually recommend choosing a coffee that sits somewhere in the middle.

Our Liberty Blend is exactly that kind of coffee.

It has a touch of fruit and brightness, which means it works beautifully as a long black or through an AeroPress. But it also has enough caramel and chocolate notes to punch through milk in a flat white.

So despite starting this article by saying there’s no such thing as a coffee that works for everyone… I might have to slightly backtrack.

Because Liberty Blend does come pretty close.

The most important thing

If there’s one thing I’ve learned after years in cafés, it’s that there is no “correct” way to enjoy coffee.

Some people love bright, fruity coffees.
Others want something rich and chocolatey.
Some people brew carefully with a V60.
Others just want a quick AeroPress before work.

And that’s the beauty of it.

Coffee isn’t about getting it “right.”
It’s about finding the beans that make your morning ritual feel good.

Start with those two questions — milk or black, and how you brew — and you’ll already be much closer to finding your perfect coffee.