November 6th, 2022

Finding the best specialty coffee these days seems like the world's most challenging scavenger hunt. You're bombarded with options as you scroll through Google or down the aisle at the grocery store.

You deserve to start each morning with a hot mug of coffee that's so remarkably smooth and flavorful, it washes away all your tiredness long before the caffeine kicks in.

• How do you know which one is the best?
• Which coffee matches your flavor preferences?
• How can you be sure that your coffee won't turn out stale or bitter?

And, with so much jargon printed on the label, it feels like you need a PhD to pick the right bag of specialty coffee beans.

We'll show you exactly why "specialty coffee" isn't always so special after all—and what you should look for instead to bring super-exceptional coffee into your morning ritual.

For decades, roasters and coffee companies have poorly roasted low-quality coffee and convinced consumers that it was the "good stuff."

Chances are, when you buy "specialty" coffee beans, you're being sold less-than-stellar coffee that has been over-roasted, bitter, and often well past its roast date.

Where does this leave you? Dumping gallons of milk, sugar, and anything else you can get your hands on into your cup drown out the bitter, stale, astringent flavor.

Instead of slowly savoring each sip of a smooth brew, as you should be, you're doing anything to improve your coffee's flavor.

That's not your responsibility! It's the roaster's job to ensure your coffee tastes fantastic from the first sip to the last.

Specialty coffee should highlight the bean's natural flavors by being thoughtfully and expertly roasted in small batches to ensure consistent coffee quality and flavor.

You'll know you've purchased world-class coffee when it brews like a breeze, hits the spot sip after sip, and leaves you rushing to bed at night so you can wake up and brew it all over again.

Read: The Ultimate Guide On How To Make Coffee Taste Good: The 5 Essential Rules

Specialty coffee is the highest quality coffee available. Specialty coffee exhibits balanced and desirable attributes such as vibrant flavors and brilliant acidity.

You know, the coffee that makes you feel like royalty after each sip!

If you want to get nerdy about it, specialty coffee is considered any coffee with a quality score of 80+ (quality scores range from 0 – 100). Coffee considered "commodity-grade" scores < 80pts has evident quality defects due to inconsistent processing and poor growing conditions.

When looking for specialty coffee, coffee roasters evaluate "green" samples for defects, then cup coffees and grade them on their aroma, flavor/aftertaste, sweetness and uniformity. Coffee is considered specialty after numerous rounds of grading and a score above 80.

Top-tier coffee is more than selecting the best green coffee money can buy.

• It's about dedicating your company to expert coffee sourcing and roasting practices
• It's about roasting in small batches to guarantee consistent quality
• It's about relentlessly sampling the coffee to perfect the roasting process for each blend, single origin, and roast
• It's about roasting the coffee right as the customer orders online to lock in flavors and maximize freshness once it reaches their doorstep
• And last but certainly not least, it's about creating partnerships and furthering the missions with the producers that grow our coffee to ensure their longevity and success.

We go to great lengths to guarantee that our coffee is superior to the never-ending shelves of premium coffee on the market. We have spent years passionately bringing to life the story of coffee through excellent sourcing, sampling, roasting, and relationship building which we have used to craft all of our signature coffee blends and single origins.

Coffee is an agricultural product. Therefore, the older the green coffee, the less fresh it is when it reaches the roaster.

If purchased far after its harvest season or not properly stored at the roasting facility, green coffee can lose its vibrance and flavor which carries over to the coffee when roasted.

We source quality green coffee from all over the world and purchase it based on peak harvest times. The coffee you could be sipping on was only harvested and shipped recently—not years ago.

The way green coffee is shipped drastically affects the end flavor. Our coffees ship in GrainPro or hermetically sealed bags. GrainPro bags help lock in freshness during the long trip from the farm to our roaster. The GrainPro bags are an extra layer beneath coffee's traditional burlap sacks, which help prevent odors, mold, or moisture buildup.

Trust us; it makes a huge difference!

From sourcing to shipping, roasting to doorstep delivery, every aspect of our process focuses on flavor first.

We only source the best green coffee with quality scores reflected in a flavorful cup. We use GrainPro bags to ensure the flavor remains intact throughout the journey. And we always roast to spotlight the bean's natural, delicious flavors.

You'll never catch us over-roasting or masking our coffee beans with artificial flavors.

Speaking of freshness and flavor…

The problem with most premium coffee is that it was roasted months ago! That's why you're stuck drinking stale, bitter coffee that you need to cover up with milk, sugar, whipped cream, and anything else you can find.

Our coffee roasts right after you order, locking in those peak flavors for a noticeable difference when you brew your first cup.

We know you're tired of buying expensive and poor-tasting coffee only to mask it with milk or sugar.

We believe coffee should be tasty from the get-go, too.

It all starts with finding the coffee that matches your personal preferences. Here's how you do it:

Always start your specialty coffee search by knowing your roast preference and flavor profile. Otherwise, you'll be sorely disappointed when you end up with a bold dark roast when you prefer juicy light roast coffees!

In the most general sense, coffees are roasted to three levels: Light, Medium, Dark, and everything in between.

Always look for a roast date or other indicator of freshness! You'll be able to tell if coffee is low-quality by the absence of a roast date or the stale taste once you brew it.

If the roast date was months ago, put that bag back on the shelf and move on!

That's why we always roast right after you place your order. Always fresh, nothing less.

We're all guilty of judging a coffee by the bag design, opting for coffees with eccentric or appealing colors and illustrations.

But don't be fooled! It's the information on the label that's the key to determining the coffee's quality, not the pretty bag.  

Always search the label for information about:

• The Coffee - When was it roasted? Where is it from? Can the beans be traced back to the source? What's the roast level?
• The Roaster - Where are they located? Do they give back to or benefit their community in any way? What are they doing to build relationships with coffee farmers? What's unique about this roaster?
• The Flavor Notes - Coffee has natural flavors, from citrus fruits to sweet sugars and everything in between. The bag should include notes about what you'll taste when you brew the coffee.

If a coffee bag doesn't include this information, skip it!

Looks can be deceiving.

Premium coffees can have shiny bags with all the correct information and still taste terrible.

In the end, it's all about the taste test. Does that first sip hit the spot? Did you chug the whole mug before you knew it because the flavor was just that good?

Spoiler Alert: It'll take trying a bunch of coffees to know what flavors and roasts you prefer. Go wild and drink a ton of different coffees until you know exactly what you love.

Good thing we've got several coffees for you to try. 

Think you can handle a challenge?

We challenge you to try any of our Coffee Bros. coffees today and taste the difference.

We bet you never go back to buying specialty coffee at a grocery store again.

We have a coffee for everyone between our carefully crafted coffee blends and our limited-edition single-origin coffees. And we promise you'll see the difference between Coffee Bros. coffee and premium coffee on the shelves of your local grocery store.

Of course, you don't have to take our word for it. Listen to our customers:

"As soon as I got home from work, I could smell the amazing aromas seeping out of my mailbox. It was at that moment I knew my Coffee Bros had arrived. I went inside super excited to brew up a nice pour-over to see if the taste notes matched the aroma. And let me tell you, they did! This is my new go-to, good job Coffee Bros, you have yourselves a new customer!" - Amazon Customer

"I purchased the dark roast, medium roast and light roast. All are delicious....I would purchase again" - Samantha W., New York

"I haven't bought coffee online until now. The word got out among friends that I should try the Coffee Bros line now available on Amazon. I'm partial to Dark Roast so that was my first purchase. Sorry to make folks jealous, but I'm enjoying a tasty mug of some terrific Coffee Bros coffee. Buy some for yourself so you don't have to imagine how good it is." - Wolf B., Connecticut

Purchase your Coffee Bros. coffee now. 

Did we mention the free shipping for orders over $60?