A Beginner's Guide To Buying Great Coffee

31 comments

1. At 3:10 I made an error because I missed that the supermarket bag of Union also has a roasted on date. In my defence, when shooting the talking part of the video the cardboard bottom was covering that bit and I didn't realise it was there. I should have picked it up when we filmed the additional shots. The point about supermarkets highlighting how long a product has left, rather than how old it is, still stands but my mistake is unfair to Union Hand Roasted, who are lovely people, pioneers of relationship coffee buying, and great roaster so go check them out: https://unionroasted.com/

2. Bloody hell , i just want some no bitter tasty coffee and do not want to apply for a job with the CIA for decoding all those coffee crap writing on the pack . 🤮🤮👎👎

3. 3:09 What are you talking about ? The roast date is also on it ( just under roasted by James) Do you think we can not pause a bloody clip ? 🙄🙄👎👎👎👎

4. Hi James why do you say country names like French roast doesn’t mean anything💁🏻? If there’s a many kind of agtron color numbers related to those names, Italian and French are very dark roast colors. The video is very good by the way 🎉 congrats 😊

5. You described many characteristics and asked what more. I don't know if this helps. While selling tea in the highway side shops in India, they promote a 4 hour tea. Implying the cheer it generates would last 4 hours. For the truckers patronizing them, the typical break is after 4 hours of driving. It is more of a stimulating word than any measured attributes
   Students preparing for the long haul before exams also like such phrases implying how long it will keep them awake.

6. I enjoy watching all your video and feel like a bad review 😂😅

7. Coffee and weed addicts (can say I’ve been both – only drink coffee now) have SO many similarities. The volatile organic compounds, the freshness being the most imperative factor, and the majority of people not understanding how taste and freshness are important. 😂

8. Step 1. Buy the cheapest black coffee. Step 2. Brew it. Step 3. Drink it.

9. Bon Cafe from Thailand

10. i have been drinking all sorts of coffees from the age of 14 on, and i always went back to drinking my cheap pad machine coffee. there might be hundreds of better coffees around, but i simply enjoy the simplicity of not having to experiment, grind my coffee by myself, make exact measurements, let it go for the right amount of time with the right amount of water temperature… it just seems like such a hassle.

    call me a neanderthal 😀

11. I remember watching this when I just started my coffee journey. It was immensely helpful.

12. are those flavor notes came from the taste of the coffee? or the aroma off the roasted whole beans?

13. Evening James!

    Don’t know much about coffee but just know I LOVE DRINKING IT!

    Could I ask your opinion? I love the Baytown Coffee Company and their Boggle Hole roast. Ever tried it? It’s my fave and would love your opinion!

    Keep on brewin’! ☕️

14. Mr Hofmann, why do not you advertise coffee produced by your company on your channel ?

15. 3-5 ranking is so arbitrary, country of origin etc… so much smoke and mirrors or should we say roast and mirror like coffee machines😂

16. So coffee is more pretentious than I ever knew! ❤😂

17. What is washed coffee? Is some coffee dirty? Another thing: me and a friend have an argument: he says coffee for filter and espresso are different coffees. I say it's not necessarily, it's just different ways of brewing. What is correct? Thanks for a grest channel.

18. I appreciate this guy is both the expert in coffee and he's not a snob telling me that my preferences are not refined enough. Thank you for making me more interested in coffee without pushing me into things I don't like!

19. What is the best kind of coffee grande to get?

20. Interesting you talk about seasonality and looking out for places that change their offerings. I noticed an Aldi near me stocked a brand of coffee for like… 2 months only. By a country mile the best coffee i ever had from a supermarket. And the medium dark was actually medium dark. I think James might be on to something ya know.

21. Certain tasting notes sometimes are in-and-of themselves unpleasant. Someone I know had had many coffee's, many ways, and all the ones she dislikes have tasting notes of hazelnut- apparently it tastes like cigarette ash to her. So if you dislike a flavour profile, it might be due to a certain tasting note and you can avoid it.

22. I tried "fermented fruit" tasting abominations multiple times, to me it's like a fermented trash juice mixed with ash

23. An interesting note, here in Japan it is extremely common for just about all specialty coffee to specify the roast level on the bag.

24. Question I am very new to the coffee world and I shall be getting an expresso machine .if I like more of a flavored coffee, like a French vanilla or caramel. What brand would you suggest?

25. 4:56 “…grinding coffee is one of the great pleasures of life…” Should be immortalized in stone!

26. Very informative! Fresh is always best, also an specialty coffee lover right here! Great video

27. Very Informative

28. I often make the mistake of blindly buying a bag of ground coffee at a department store based on the look of the package and ending up with a bag of coffee that tastes like dirt. I need to stop doing that.

29. Even the richest in The Philippines has to deal with Nescafe granules!!! KOFFIE is really a previledge!

30. Lately, I purchased Senseo & Illy coffies at carrefour, and when I tasted them, I never knew that I wished I had my "strong" LIDL KOFFIE!!!I was never content with the coffie I purchased from shops!!! My best "koffie" was the ones my mother brewed from rice granules, in The Philippines!

31. Buying coffee beans 👌