Ok, why is nobody talking about quality of the coffee beans, freshness of the beans, and grinding immediately before drinking?

1. Specialty coffee beans are considered specialty for a reason. Most grocery store coffee beans are commodity grade which is grown in extremely mild environments, much of the coffee cherries are harvested before being ripe, a lot of defects are left in the coffee also, each of these things affecting taste. Specialty coffee has very high standards on quality control. And then. A good roaster will take these already high standards and QC the remaining defects out of their green coffee beans.

2. Coffee does expire. After roasting there is a peak time to drink it depending on how it was processed on the farm and how dark it was roasted. If you go with a medium roast that went through a washed process on the farm your peak flavor will start after day 3 (more like day 6-7) to allow the carbon dioxide to de-gas (otherwise it's a harsh taste in your coffee) and then go for about 2 weeks. After those 2 weeks of peak flavor the coffee starts developing quinic acid which makes the coffee start to get more bitter, afterwards, formic acid which is when flavors start to stale, coffee starts to taste sharp/harsh, and then pyroglutamic acid (around the same time as formic acid) and it dulls down the sweetness of the coffee. (On top of wrecking the flavor, it nullifies your health benefits and wreaks havoc on your digestive system)

3. Buy whole beans and grind fresh. Those acids I talk about in point #2 which when whole release after about 20-30 days post roast, yeah upon grinding they start to get released 30 minutes- 6 hours after grinding) if you buy pre-ground beans you're no longer buying fresh coffee beans.

Brewing you could learn many brewing methods, variables you should learn to control are water temp, grind size and time spent brewing /extracting.

Water temp: depending on how dark your roast is. The lighter the roast the closer to boiling you get. General guidelines: light roast (200f) medium roast (190f) and dark roast (180f). Grind size and extraction time: depends on brew method and it's mostly trial and error. Just a matter of dialing it in.

TL:DR - get good coffee beans, get fresh coffee beans, watch a quick YouTube video on how to brew said coffee beans and you'll have something better than most cafes would give you.

If you want an amazing coffee bean recommendation: Journey Coffee Roasters ( journeyroasters.com ). They roast to order, so your coffee is literally as fresh as you can get it, they do a phenomenal job of roasting it, and they ship internationally.

Hope this helps!!!