We work closely with importers to source our coffee from specialty coffee growers worldwide. Quality is of the utmost importance here at Rivers Bend Coffee Roasters, and we strive to bring that quality to our customers. For this reason, we have a strict evaluation process for selecting the perfect beans for our single-origin and blend offerings. Each origin offers something different, so we provide various offerings to satisfy even the pickiest of coffee drinkers. We may be biased, but you should buy coffee from Rivers Bend Coffee Roasters to ensure you get the freshest and finest quality coffee for your brew. However, if you are in a pinch and want to know if the coffee will be good, here are a few tips: buy from a specialty coffee roaster or a specialty coffee shop. Try to avoid buying coffee from the supermarket. They tend to have best buy dates up to 6 months from when it was roasted, making the coffee quite old when it reaches the shelf.

This is a tricky question. The answer we typically give is to use your coffee in the first two weeks after roasting and buy smaller amounts more often. For some, this is inconvenient, and they prefer to stock up to save time and money. One solution to this problem would be to become a member of our coffee family and have coffee automatically delivered to your door as often as you would like. Another solution is to store coffee in an airtight, opaque container at room temperature. Coffee stored this way will oxidize more slowly and preserve more of the aroma in the bean. When storing coffee this way, you can expect up to 6 weeks of good coffee flavor before it starts to fade. If you want to store coffee for extended periods, a Kona you brought back when on vacation and would like to share at the holidays can be stored in the freezer if the bag has not been opened. Putting coffee in the freezer will cause the coffee to oxidize and fade faster than on the counter. Fortunatly, it will become stable around six weeks and remain relatively the same quality indefinitely. 

The best practice is to grind your coffee as close to the time you will be brewing as possible. As soon as coffee is ground, it begins to off-gas, causing it to lose its aroma and oxidize. Once this oxidation process begins, the coffee will quickly stale and become flat in the cup. So instead, use freshly roasted coffee and a burr grinder to grind your coffee just before brewing for the best results. This will give you the best possible coffee experience at home.

There are two main species of coffee, Arabica, and Robusta. The specialty coffee roaster typically only uses high-grade Arabica beans for their offerings, except that some roasters will add some robusta to their espresso blends to increase the crema when pulling shots. Ethiopia is thought to be the birthplace of coffee, and all modern varieties come from selecting new stock from the best-producing coffees in a particular region. This is why we have wide different varieties of Arabica coffee. Within the Arabica species, there are many varieties or cultivars. Some of the most common are Bourbon, Catura, Geisha, Mondo Novo, Catui, Heirloom, and Typicas. Each variety has its own character, and depending on environmental conditions, different flavors can be achieved even within the same varieties. Think Roma tomatoes grown in Italy vs. chile. They could be grown from the same seed and taste very different. Everything from the soil, altitude, rainfall, average temperature, and processing method can impact the flavor of a coffee. So how many different coffees are there? Hundreds of varieties and countless variations mean there are an almost infinite number of coffees. Lucky for you, we have 20 years of experience selecting the best coffees from the best farms, so you can rest easy knowing you are getting the finest quality coffee around.

The quick answer is that I mostly prefer to drink east African coffee. It tends to have a wide range of flavor characteristics that make the experience more enjoyable. That said, I like different coffees for different things. Some brew methods lend themselves to different coffees in more preferable ways than others. For example, cold brew is better with lower acidity coffee than a bright or dark roast coffee, so I like a mellow central American coffee from places like Costa Rica, Peru, and Colombia. A balanced blend of beans is the way to go when brewing espresso. There is no right bean for an application other than the one you like. We encourage you to experiment with different brew methods and bean combinations to create your unique spin on our coffees. Drop us a message if you think you have a winner, and we want to know about it!

These terms refer to the process that the coffee goes through after it has been picked and is called wet milling and dry milling. Natural means that the coffee has been picked and dried straight from the tree without going through the wet milling process. The outer skin of the off, the cherry, is left on the beans while it dries, giving it some fruity, floral, and citrus flavors. Pulp Natural is the same process, except the cherry skins are removed, and the coffee goes to the drying stage. This can give the coffee similar flavors to the natural process but tend to be less intense. The washed process is when the coffee that has been pulped, removing the cherry skin, is either put into a wash tank and left to soak or run through a mechanical demucilaging to remove a layer of sugary mucilage from the remaining bean. From there, the coffee is sent to the drying phase. This gives the coffee a mild clean flavor and possibly lower acidity.

This is the question most people ask, and the short answer is that the best way is whatever you like best. We will add some brewing guidelines in another section if you want a starting point or are interested in the various brewing methods.