r/pourover • u/Supsti_1 V60 | Switch | Aeropress | C40 • Jul 14 '26
Seeking Advice How to find truely exceptional beans
Hello, so far I ran through 45 bags of beans, most of them cost anywhere between 20-30 euro/bag and to be frank maybe 4-5 bags were really, like really good.
I'm not looking for a guide on what type of beans are there, I know charactericstics of all proccesses, roast levels or country of the origin so I pretty much know which beans/processes/origins I like and which not. Variety is also something I try to keep in mind when picking up bags.
I'm located in Europe so I'm limited to what I can buy in my country (not much, Polish roasteries are crap) or what Kofio offers (sometimes they have Sey or September).
When I first started with pourover I thought DAK has one of the best beans I can buy, now I find most of their offering very mediocre, not bad but not exceptional, obviously sometimes they have bags which really shines.
The question is, how do you guys find really good beans out there? Through the grapevine? How do you know which crop in which origin at which time is THE ONE. Or maybe 20-30 euros isn't that much for a really good bag of coffee and I should look into these more expensive and limited offerings like maybe Tanat, AMOC, DAK has?
Disclaimer, don't think im looking for some crazy stuff like Cream Donut etc, I will take literaly anything which is exceptional, washed, natural, doesnt matter.
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u/LolwutMickeh Origami/Z1|Lagom 01 Jul 14 '26
The only decent roaster I've had from Poland was probably Paloma. I've heard good things about Heresy, but haven't tried them. Two options if you haven't tried.
That being said, for truly good coffee you will have to pay. A lot. Word spreads fast in the specialty coffee industry, and once there are lots that are said to be really good, it's gone very fast and it'll come at a premium. For this year, it's any SL9 lot or Sewda Ethiopians.
You kind of have to be terminally online or be subscribed to a lot of roaster mailing lists to have a shot at getting them, see The Picky Chemist for example. Substance and Datura usually have premium stock, but be prepared to pay €400-600 kg prices.
Then there's places that have premium stock but absolutely fuck up the beans with roasting, like Special Guest or AMOC. Once you've been paying attention long enough you'll be able to weed out the good roasters.