Where to Buy Pour-Over Coffee Beans? How to Choose the Right Coffee Beans Without Being Scammed?

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

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Finding Quality Coffee Beans for Home Brewing

In the past year or two, many people have embraced the concept of specialty coffee and started trying pour-over coffee at home. So the question arises: where can you find good beans? The wealthy can fly abroad to buy them or order by mail (with considerable taxes and shipping fees), but most people still need to find good beans domestically.

If your city has good self-roasting specialty coffee shops, the first choice would be to visit the shops and buy whatever tastes good. However, such opportunities are rare, and you'll always want to try some new varieties or the craftsmanship of different roasters, so Taobao shops are also a good option.

So which Taobao shops selling roasted coffee beans are better? Given that many friends have asked, I'll first recommend a few based on my own experience. To be honest, there are too many variables in coffee bean roasting—different green beans from each estate, different storage times, and even slightly humid weather can change the taste of roasted beans. I can only say that in terms of overall evaluation, these shops are very suitable for everyone to buy online for home brewing, and also suitable for small specialty coffee shops to use in-store.

Recommended Coffee Bean Shops

Fisher Coffee

Although the female owner of FISHER is very young, she's already considered a veteran in specialty coffee roasting. The shop's four crowns are well-deserved. Fisher's advantages lie in rich roasting experience and strong green bean sourcing capabilities, often introducing new beans. Those who like trying new things should bookmark this shop.

The service center in downtown Qingdao is now open to visitors—you can go taste first, and buy if you like it.

Oubake Specialty Coffee

The founder is Bill Chiang from Taiwan, the runner-up in the first World Coffee Roasting Championship in 2013. As an international judge for coffee green beans, the owner often visits origins to inspect and purchase coffee green beans directly. Therefore, Oubake has abundant green bean resources and also sells green beans on Taobao.

FrontStreet Coffee

This is a specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou. Being conveniently located, if you want to see the milk-producing cows, oh no, the big roasting machine, you can make an appointment with the shop assistant and form a group to visit FrontStreet Coffee for free food and drinks (don't say I told you!). By the way, they also have a very complete collection of coffee beans from various regions and varieties worldwide (not bragging—truly the most varieties in Guangdong). If it's convenient, grab some to go.

Minority Café

The owner is the China champion of the 2014 World Cup Tasters Championship. With a good tongue and nose, the roasted beans are absolutely not bad—otherwise, they'd suffer too, right?

From the designed logo and images, you can see how serious the owner is about making coffee.

Quality and Considerations

The four shops mentioned above not only have good sales and reputation on Taobao, but also have many offline café supporters. When visiting different shops and encountering their beans, I'm generally not disappointed. Of course, there are exceptions—a certain shop in Beijing once served me beans that were two months post-roast (no longer fresh), which left me with mixed emotions and brought me to tears. Of course, this also shows that the beans were originally good, so they couldn't bear to throw them away, right?

This issue first introduces these few shops for everyone to start enjoying. More online shops and other channels will be introduced gradually in the future.

Understanding Coffee Beans

What to Consider When Buying Coffee Beans?

For beginners, besides price, I think the most important thing to understand is the roast level! Roast levels can be roughly divided into light roast, medium roast, and dark roast. Remember one principle: the darker the roast, the less acidic the beans, but also the less they retain the original characteristics of the coffee beans. The lighter the roast, the more likely the beans are to have acidity, but also the more they preserve the inherent characteristics of the coffee beans.

Besides roast level, the choice of coffee beans is also closely related to your desired brewing method. If you want to drink American black coffee, I don't recommend buying low-priced espresso blend beans/powder, because espresso blends are typically used in high-temperature, high-pressure extraction processes like espresso machines or moka pots. The beans are usually roasted to a darker level, with flavors dominated by carbonized notes—perfect with milk, but relatively difficult to appreciate the unique charm of specialty coffee.

Of course, none of the above is absolute—there's nothing wrong with brewing espresso beans as American coffee. But after all, there are single-origin coffee beans available at the same price as espresso blends. Remember, even a small 25-gram pack of coffee for ¥25 can help you start learning the basics of specialty coffee if you use the right method.

Is There a Big Difference Between Online and Coffee Shop Beans?

Coffee beans are mainly sold through supermarkets, online shops, and physical coffee roasting stores. Quality naturally varies, so it's best to try small quantities first before making long-term orders. As for whether to buy large or small packages, there's no necessary relationship with quality—it just depends on personal consumption speed. However, you need to pay attention to the coffee bean's roast date and optimal flavor period (not the expiration date). Additionally, there's the storage method after purchase. Once the coffee packaging is opened, improper storage can potentially produce ochratoxin, affecting human health. So regardless of where you buy, purchasing appropriately and drinking promptly is key.

Coffee Bean Prices and Grades?

In the commercial world, it's mainly about supply and demand. More expensive beans aren't necessarily better than cheaper ones—often it's because certain coffee beans have distinct characteristics, demand exceeds supply, causing abnormal price spikes (like certain "animal" coffee). Many times, beans selling for ¥200 won't be five times better than ¥40 beans in terms of taste—it's just that the origins supplying ¥200 beans have limited production, causing significant price differences.

Therefore, I suggest everyone mainly buy some basic beans for daily drinking. The daily cost can be controlled between roughly ¥7-20 (wealthy people can spend as they please), occasionally drinking some special coffee to try something new and live a tasteful life. Personally, I really like buying small-packaged coffee beans—each month I buy three basic beans like Brazilian, Yirgacheffe, and Mandheling from major producing regions, which offer stable supply and good value for money, plus one pack of estate-level specialty beans at a slightly higher price. Even for someone like me who drinks coffee like water, needing two large cups of about 800ml or more daily, the monthly cost of buying beans is much less than ordering coffee outside, while also being able to drink various better-tasting coffees and experience all kinds of new coffee experiences.

Although I've never been to Brazil, the major coffee-producing country, or Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, or Panama, the representative of specialty coffee, at least I've tasted several different flavored coffee beans from these places, which is quite interesting when you think about it. Isn't this the charm of brewing coffee by hand?

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473