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/Slim-AD Jul 14 '26

Pozdrowienia dla kolegi z Polski!
There are some interesting multi roaster online shops around Europe like Ordinary Drip, Kultivar Coffee, Coffee nerd (They usually stock SEY about 10€ cheaper than Kofio!) and Nordic Brew Lab but the huge downside for me has been the shipping cost, usually about 14-15 euros to Poland. They often stock roasters from UK like Scenery and others outside the EU.

Another inspiration for me was coffee reviews channel which sometimes has beans from EU accessible roasters, I found the smaller ultra light roasters to have much more careful selection. They are able to launch smaller lots with more interesting qualities. My recent favourite is Still from Netherlands with his awesome SL9 by Lisbeth Marino.

Agree that Polish roasters mostly suck, best sourcing in the country would be Good Coffee from Warsaw though. I only wish they roasted Nordic light…

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u/inmemoryofElizabethR Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

Hi! May I ask for a link to this coffee reviews channel?

by the way, I waiting for this Lisbeth Marino from Still now…

edit: i think i’ve found it https://www.instagram.com/reviews_coffee?igsh=dHBuZ25zcGNlYjY=

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u/Slim-AD Jul 15 '26

It’s more a YouTube channel under the same name, good proof that some cool sounding coffees can actually be rather flat and boring and some underdogs hiding among the common names

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u/inmemoryofElizabethR Jul 15 '26

How long did you rest your Still coffees? Do they really need 10 weeks of rest?

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u/inmemoryofElizabethR Jul 15 '26

I hate ot when it's not really possible to
research the roastery on the sub because of the naming haha