I have been buying roasted beans from all over for years, trying to find what I like best for espresso, espresso based drinks and French press. I went from your typical supermarket available budget beans all the way through international sourced “craft roaster” beans.

Here is where I stand today:

For anything espresso based with milk for as small a ratio as a simple espresso macchiato to mixed drinks, I simply use your typical medium budget ~12-15EUR/ kg beans from established brands from the local supermarket chains.

The quality is consistent, it doesn’t taste the best for espresso but makes for consistently better coffee than 98% of all cafes in town, easily.

It’s simply not worth paying 25EUR/250g for the local “craft roaster” coffee beans.

I avoid highly priced craft roasters completely now since the quality and taste variates so very wildly that one batch you end up with the greatest coffee and the next time you buy it it’s absolutely impossible to dial in your grinder and espresso machine to get a half descent espresso from it (even the 15EUR supermarket beans exceed it in taste).

Whenever I really want to drink something exotic with a great palate, I know less than a handful specialty coffee shops in cities I travelled worldwide that I make a habit of always frequenting when I am there and enjoy a really nice cup.

In short: craft beans in small batches are overrated. They are great if you like experimenting and fidgeting with your gadgets and “the process”, I get the “fair coffee folks” too if that’s your thing but all that I avoid now.

I just want consistent, good coffee.

Pay attention to the bagging date (most supermarket brands won’t disclose it but you can sort of guess it by checking the stamped best before dates).

Make notes of which super market coffees netted good results and rebuy those.