Buy Coffee Beans Online - Everything you need to know
We have been proudly sourcing our coffee beans through Cofi-Com for several decades. Our aim has always been to provide the best beans to suit any coffee lover. Regardless of who you are, there's a choice of coffee that's right for you. We pride ourselves on finding it, roasting it to perfection and pairing you up with it. You may have noticed we have many coffee beans for sale! These include organic beans, decaf beans and rainforest-alliance beans. This is because there is no one-size-fits-all solution. When searching for the best coffee beans online for our customers, we want to keep everyone happy.
When it comes to sourcing your coffee, make sure you look for quality. There are many factors involved in delivering perfectly roasted coffee beans at scale. In our experience, smaller coffee roasters can often struggle with such an operation.
If deciding on the best coffee beans is a challenge, make sure you try our coffee quiz for guidance. We have been helping customers make good choices for a very long time. The quiz will point you in the right direction.
We find time and time again there will never be a one-size fits all approach to coffee bean matching! The number of factors that produce the coffee in your cup is so high that any answer would be too simplified.
You also want to get good advice on matching coffee beans to how you brew coffee. It's very possible to buy excellent coffee beans only to brew them with a poor choice of method. This can lead to a bad impression of the coffee itself! All of our coffees for sale are the highest grades from those countries.
Aromas has been roasting coffee for four decades (we were one of the very first coffee roasters in Brisbane!). We have seen trends in coffee-roasting and consumption come and go. One thing remains the same though:
Excellent coffee starts with buying high-quality green coffee beans followed by skilful roasting.
We have a unique roasting profile for every variety of bean because each is so different. The last consideration is delivering the best customer-experience to other lovers of fresh-roasted coffee.
Coffees from around the world
Coffee is grown around the world along the 'equatorial belt'. The growing conditions found along the equator are ideal for coffee production. These are the countries that tend to be the main exporters of coffee. When shopping online for beans you are likely to encounter a wide range of coffees and countries. Let's break down what you can more or less expect from coffee beans from these regions. While we can't cover them all, we'll list the most popular beans for sale on the market in Australia.
Brazil
Brazil is the worlds largest supplier of coffee. It currently grows a third of the world's coffee beans! As you can imagine, a huge diversity of coffees come from this country, alongside Brazil nuts. It is also one of the largest exporters of high-quality robusta beans. Brazil's focus has been more on scale and production. As a result it isn't associated with producing the highest-quality coffee beans. Still, coffees from Brazil can be fabulous, especially when used for espresso. They often have a strong chocolate undertone which is desirable in espresso coffee. They are also heavier in body with low acidity and great sweetness. They are an ideal blending bean.
Colombia
Ok, here's a fact: most of the coffees you can buy in Australia have Colombian beans in them! Colombia is also one of the largest producers of coffee in the world. Colombian coffees have a huge range of flavours. You'll find heavier, chocolatier coffees through to sweet and jammy microlots. There is a huge spectrum of flavours found in Colombian coffees and they are well worth your time. Our very affordable single origin, Colombian Vienna, is also one of our most popular.
Costa Rica
Known for clean and pleasant coffees, we have some beauties from Costa Rica. They are often very light-bodied and quite sweet. This makes them very popular with our filter coffee drinkers.
Ethiopia
Coffees from Ethiopia are some of the most unique and prized in the world. They are often amazingly floral and fruity. Their aromas can include intense candied fruits or even specific tropical fruits. You'll usually find either washed coffee beans or naturally-processed ones. Buy Ethiopian coffees when you want to explore fruitier notes and diversity.
India
Indian coffees get used a lot more in blends than as single origins. While they are very high quality, their flavour is seldom complex and multi-layered. Their flavours tend to be heavy, creamy and low on acidity.
Indonesia
Indonesian coffee beans have a unique flavour. It is actually a divisive flavour, owing to their unique processing methods. In Indonesia, coffee gets processed using a hybrid method. It is part washed and part natural. These coffee beans are 'semi-washed' and have a flavour that is very 'love-hate'. The semi-washed process has a dramatic effect on cup quality. It reduces acidity, increases body and introduces new flavours. These include woody, nutty and earthy notes. Some people LOVE these flavours while others call them defective. You can be the judge. A coffee like our Black Label contains coffee beans from both Ethiopia AND Indonesia. This produces the best of both worlds.
Kenya
Kenyan coffees are famous for their complex flavours and bright, intense acidity. Like their Ethiopian neighbours, coffees can be very fruity. Kenyan coffee tends to be more on the berry-spectrum of fruit.
Papua New Guinea
PNG produces similar coffee profiles to Indonesia with some exceptions. The best coffees from PNG can have a buttery, creamy quality. They are also known for fabulous acidity and complexity. Our famous house blend from the 90's, Chicago Dark, gets its unique flavour from a PNG bean.
Coffee Beans Q&A
1. How should I store my coffee beans once I've bought them?
This is such an important subject that we have an entire blog post dedicated to it. In short, it depends on whether your coffee is in whole-bean form or if you buy your coffee pre-ground. Whole coffee beans are the most resilient. Be sure to keep them away from excessive light, humidity or oxygen. A storage container with a one-way gas-valve is the most optimal. Make sure you keep coffee beans in a cool space such as a low cupboard or pantry.
2. Do you roast coffee beans daily?
Yes we do. You want to drink coffee in the optimal age range to get the most desirable flavour profile. For most coffee beans, this is at least 48 hrs (and no more than 10 days) after roasting.
3. How fresh will my coffee beans be?
They will arrive at the peak of their freshness cycle. We rest our coffees for at least 48hrs for proper flavour development. This allows sweetness and subtle fruity notes to develop. Be wary of coffee companies that claim to serve you coffee roasted on the same day! We also have a blog post on this exact topic because it is very important. Flavour development does not stop at the end of a roast. It actually continues for several days as CO2 releases and chemical changes occur.
4. Which coffee beans are the best for me?
Wondering which beans you should buy? You definitely want to use our quiz. See what it recommends as a starting point. It will assess your flavour/intensity preferences, brewing equipment and more.
Then you need to think about a few things. What flavour do you like? Even if you aren't a coffee nerd, we bet you'll be able to describe what you like. Often people use words like strong, weak, intense and bitter. This is describing the intensity of flavour.
The biggest contributor to this is roast level. Darker-roasted coffee is going to have a big effect on intensity. Have a look at our coffee beans. They all have a roast-level, ranging between 5 (a light-roast) and 10 (a dark roast). Based on what you like, use this filter to choose beans that match your tastes.
5. What coffee beans suit my brewing equipment?
Great question! This is a big topic but there are definitely some guidelines to follow.
Espresso: Coffee beans roasted for espresso are darker than other brewing methods. This is because ground espresso coffee needs to produce enough resistance for extraction. Don't buy light-roasted coffee for a domestic espresso machine. It will usually produce under-extracted coffee. It will appear weak, light and taste sour and astringent.
Filter/Cold Brew: The opposite is true. These brewngi methods produce finer, delicate coffees. They should showcase a coffee bean's unique characteristics. When you roast a bean to a medium-dark level you start to lose its uniqueness. Instead you will start to produce 'general coffee flavours'. These are still very pleasant but are common to the roasting process itself, not the bean. If you are buying coffee for a filter method, look for very high-quality coffee beans. They should be light to medium roasted. The most common beans for filter are single origin coffees.
Other Brew Methods: Generally speaking, other brew methods are much more forgiving. You have a lot more room for experimentation and variation. Still, it is best practice to avoid poor quality coffee beans, poor roasting or old coffee.
6. What is an Omni Blend?
Most espresso coffees are blends. The blending process is when you combine coffees from different origins. This produces a combined flavour profile which is often very desirable.
The blending process can be either pre or post-roasting. If the beans are blended before roasting, they will all be roasted to the same level. If they are blended post-roasting, you can have blends with different roast levels.
An omni blend is an espresso coffee that is post-blended. Its beans will usually be roasted to different levels. Some will be lighter-roasts while others will be darker. This is often very desirable because you get a mix of light and dark characteristics in one coffee. Think of it as the best of both worlds.
7. Should I buy single origins or blends?
Both! The trick is knowing what the main differences are and what to look for.
Blends are as described above. They combine flavours from different beans to produce a more complex, balanced result. They are usually (but always) roasted a little darker than single origins. Buy coffee blends when you are wanting a really good, balanced coffee where the emphasis isn't heavily on savouring subtle or novel flavours.
Single Origin Coffees are coffee beans from just one source. That may be one farm or one region. They are characterised by the uniqueness of that region. Due to local terroir flavours, processing methods, varietals and environmental factors, each origin has its own thing going on! Buy single origins when you want to really taste what that region tastes like! The more you taste just one origin's characteristics, the better your palette becomes. Also, while blending masks the uniqueness of its components to a certain extent, single origin coffee beans showcase exactly what is there. They are roasted lighter in small batches and usually consumed black. Consuming coffee this way showcases as much of the bean's true flavours. Blends on the other hand start to take on a more generic coffee flavour.
8. Should I buy whole beans or ground coffee?
Whole beans! Ok, so maybe it's not that easy for some people but buying whole coffee beans instead of pre-ground coffee is always preferable where possible. Once coffee has been ground, it starts to age much faster. The staling process is related to oxidation.
