A Beginner's Guide to Buying Better Coffee Beans

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Wirecutter Show

Episode: "A Beginner's Guide to Buying Better Coffee Beans"

Date: February 20, 2026
Host: Rosie Guerin
Guest: Sum Yai (Co-founder, Coffee Project New York)

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Overview

In this episode, host Rosie Guerin dives into the fundamentals of choosing great coffee beans, joined by Sum Yai, the co-founder of Coffee Project New York and a certified Q Grader (the coffee industry’s equivalent of a wine sommelier). The conversation unpacks the intimidating world of coffee labels, tasting notes, roast levels, and choosing beans that fit your taste—even if you’re a total beginner.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sum Yai’s Coffee Journey

• Sum’s Background:
  Sum shares her Malaysian roots, describing coffee as a central part of social life, from morning to late-night gatherings.

  “Coffee culture there, it's a big thing... It's just like a medium for us to get together and talk about things.” (Sum Yai, 03:07)

• Moving to New York deepened her connection, as she discovered coffee as both a beverage and a complex, global product.

2. Deciphering Coffee Bag Labels

• Where to Start:
  Begin by focusing on flavor notes described on the packaging—chocolate, fruit, spice, etc.—as a way to navigate the overwhelming variety.

  “I prefer to go with the flavor first or the profile first because then it opens up your mind about trying different coffees from different origin.” (Sum Yai, 04:27)

3. Understanding Tasting Notes

• Impressions, not Ingredients:
  Descriptors like “chocolate,” “hazelnut,” or “strawberry” are results of chemical changes during roasting, not added flavors.

  “When you see a bag of coffee that you have notes like chocolate, hazelnuts, brown sugar, these are all the chemical reaction that's happening when we put the seed into a roaster... it reminds you of how it tastes, like chocolate, hazelnut or brown sugar.” (Sum Yai, 04:56)

• Subjectivity:
  Individual experiences with flavors mean that tasting notes serve as a guide rather than an exact promise.

  “We both know that we're tasting strawberry because we have experience having them... highly likely there is a compound in the beverage itself that reminds you of the strawberry that you had...” (Sum Yai, 05:57)

4. Palette Calibration: Speaking a Common Language

• Professional Practice:
  Coffee professionals regularly taste and describe spices and fruits together to align their language, known as the “coffee lexicon.”
  • Example: Tasting lime for more than just acidity—also for saltiness and other flavor layers.
• Accessible Descriptions:
  For consumers, brands use fun or familiar terms—think "Jolly Rancher" or "fruity Pebbles"—to make notes less intimidating.

  “These are terms that it's a little bit more common that people can actually figure it out... and it's also more fun and personally I think it's less scary.” (Sum Yai, 08:16)

5. Whole Bean vs. Pre-Ground

• Go Whole Bean:
  Coffee stays fresher longer as whole beans and gives you brewing flexibility.

  “Once you ground the coffee, you're exposing the coffee areas a lot more. So chances of it degassing, getting stale is a lot quicker...” (Sum Yai, 09:31)

• Pre-ground coffee limits your ability to adjust for different brewing methods.

6. Roast Date & Freshness

• Why It Matters:
  The roast date signals freshness, but ultra-fresh isn’t always best immediately—beans benefit from "resting" post-roast.

  “When you have a bag of coffee that is super fresh... and you brew it right away, it's not always going to be the best results because there are still a lot of things going on with the coffee after we finish roasting.” (Sum Yai, 10:23)

  • Rest Period: Wait at least 5–7 days after roasting for optimal flavor.

  “Ideally, seven days.” (Sum Yai, 11:44)

7. Roast Levels (Light, Medium, Dark)

• Flavor Cues:
  • Light Roast: More floral, fruity, and herbaceous.
  • Medium Roast: Balanced, with cooked fruit and brown sugar notes.
  • Dark Roast: Deep flavors—caramel, chocolate, roasted nuts.

    “As long as you're not tasting burnt or extreme bitterness... it will be great as a milk beverage. Or maybe that is the cup of coffee that you need to wake you up in the morning.” (Sum Yai, 13:02)

8. Origin and Taste Profiles

• General Guidelines:
  • Asian coffee: Lower acidity, more mellow.
  • Americas: Mild acidity, spice, apple flavors.
  • Africa: Bright, fruity, and floral.
  • Note: Modern processing techniques (like anaerobic fermentation) can create surprises, so expect exceptions!

  “I have a cup of coffee... from Indonesia… it tastes like almost in high elevation Colombia... So while we all have something to ground us... things are getting more and more complex.” (Sum Yai, 13:20)

9. Navigating Coffee Aisles

• Rosie’s Question: How to pick when faced with too many choices?
  • Start with flavor notes and brewing method, then explore origins, and always check for a recent roast date.

  “Pick the coffee that you like, how it tastes, the brew method it's roasted for, and then after that, you can look into regions that might excite you.” (Sum Yai, 14:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On subjectivity:
  “Notes of strawberry to me in a bag of coffee is very likely going to be different... on my palate than it will be on yours.” (Rosie Guerin, 06:44)
• On roast freshness:
  “A very common flavor call that we will be getting if the coffee is way too fresh, is roasted beef. Yes.” (Sum Yai, 11:11)
• On feeling overwhelmed by coffee options:
  “I've been a wannabe coffee snob for years and I still struggle at the grocery store... deciphering the words on the back of a bag of beans.” (Rosie Guerin, 00:40)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:07] – Sum explains her introduction to coffee and cultural roots
• [04:27] – How to start choosing beans based on bag labels
• [04:56] – Tasting notes: what do they actually mean?
• [05:57] – Subjectivity in flavor perception
• [07:32] – Calibrating palate in professional tasting
• [09:31] – Whole bean vs. pre-ground recommendation
• [10:23] – Understanding roast dates and resting coffee
• [11:44] – How long to wait after roasting before brewing
• [11:57] – Light, medium, and dark roast explained
• [13:20] – Coffee origins and changing flavor landscapes
• [14:51] – Grocery store buying guidance

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Final Thoughts

This episode serves as a friendly, jargon-busting guide for anyone who wants to buy delicious coffee without intimidation. By focusing on flavor profiles, freshness, and whole beans—and understanding that taste is subjective—listeners are empowered to explore coffee more confidently. Sum Yai’s expertise grounds the process in both science and enjoyment, making the world of coffee accessible and fun.

Transcript

[A]

I'm Rosie Guerin, and you're listening to the Wirecutter show. Hey there, it's Rosie. In our last episode, Christine and I talked with Wirecutter editorial director Marguerite Preston about the gear you need to upgrade your coffee setup at home. We covered grinders, different brewing methods, and other techniques to develop the flavor you want in your morning brew. So go check that out if you haven't heard it. There's one important element of a great cup of coffee we didn't have time to talk about, and that's the coffee beans themselves. Every cup of coffee starts off as a ripe coffee cherry, the fruit of the coffee plant. The seeds of that plant get harvested, dried, roasted, and packaged up as coffee beans. Every step of the coffee production process is an opportunity to change the way a cup eventually will taste from the type of coffee plant you grow to the temperature at which you roast the beans. To be honest, I find that a bit overwhelming. I've been a wannabe coffee snob for years and I still struggle at the grocery store or at my local coffee shop deciphering the words on the back of a bag of beans. How do I experiment with new brands or new coffee roasters and still have confidence that I'm actually gonna like the taste? So to understand that, I'm going through Coffee 101 with Sum Yai. Sum is co founder of Coffee Project New York, which began as a coffee shop in New York's East Village, and it has since expanded into roasting wholesale retail education. Sum also happens to be a certified Q Grater, which I've just learned is essentially the equivalent of a sommelier in wine. So after the break, Sum's going to tell me about how to buy coffee beans that will end up in a cup of coffee I love. So stick around.

[B]

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[A]

We're back with Sum Nai, coffee expert and co founder of Coffee Project New York. Som welcome to the Wirecutter Show. So happy to have you.

[C]

Thanks for having me.

[A]

Thank you for Being here, my first question is, how? Why? When did you fall in love with coffee?

[C]

I'm from Malaysia, born and raised. And coffee culture there, it's a big thing. Like we would go hang out, drink coffee at any time of the day, 7:00am to like 2:00am in the morning, because it's just like a medium for us to get together and talk about things. My love for actual, like the specialty coffee side of things didn't really have happen until I moved to New York City. I wanted to actually build the space, like what I have back home in Malaysia for people to come in and gather, drinking whatever they want. However, I realized that as soon as I start the business, me diving deeper and deeper into coffee as a beverage, and now it become coffee as the fruit. And then the whole coffee culture is the people, the producer. And all these people that we're bringing together changed a lot for me from the beginning itself, where it is just the beverage as a medium of connection.

[A]

Okay, so you obviously have a very, very deep knowledge of coffee. We're gonna ask you to dial it way, way, way back, like you're talking to curious novices. So how do you choose beans you know, you'll like when you get home?

[C]

So I think the first thing is maybe look at the bag of coffee and see some of these flavor calls that is listed on the bag. I prefer to go with the flavor first or the profile first, because then it opens up your mind about trying different coffees from different origin.

[A]

I want to talk a little bit about these tasting notes and some of the words that you see on a bag of coffee. If you see chocolatey as an example, what does that mean?

[C]

A lot of times it's an impression. The bag of coffee tells you what is the first thing that you might be tasting. Coffee itself is a fruit. So the innate flavor call that you get from it, it's going to be either fruity or something herbaceous or floral or a combination of both. But when you see a bag of coffee that you have notes like chocolate, hazelnuts, brown sugar, these are all the chemical reaction that's happening when we put the seed into a roaster and start roasting them. So it's the sugar in the seed itself browning to a certain reaction, it reminds you of how it tastes, like chocolate, hazelnut or brown sugar.

[A]

I've seen cherry, I've seen apple. I've seen so many different things, and I've always wondered what that means. So that manifests when the beans are being roasted.

[C]

Correct. So technically speaking, like whenever the Coffee is getting roasted, chemical reaction happen and the heat change some component in the beans itself to a compound that you might also find in, let's say, strawberry. So when we both eat a strawberry together, we know it tastes like strawberry, but I don't know how your strawberry tastes, and you will not know how my strawberry tastes. But we both know that we're tasting strawberry because we have experience having them. With the roasting side of things is if this coffee has impression of strawberry, highly likely there is a compound in the beverage itself that reminds you of the strawberry that you had in the added compound when you're eating a strawberry. So.

[A]

So this is all incredibly subjective because notes of strawberry to me in a bag of coffee is very likely going to be different or different on my palate than it will be on yours, whatever that strawberry is.

[C]

Correct. So whenever I am teaching a class or I'm like getting a note on the bag of coffee, a lot of times we try to stay calibrated. We will know, like if let's say this bag of coffee tastes like strawberry, then my strawberry and your strawberry will somewhat be the same. Because we have experience with what we call the coffee lexicon or the flavor wheel, where we do a bunch of palette calibration together.

[A]

Can you explain this process? I've heard of it, I've read a little bit about it. But I would love for you to kind of paint a picture of what that looks like. The calibration process.

[C]

Once in a while, we gather some of our team members and we buy a bunch of spices, fruits, and we eat it together and try to pinpoint the product that we're eating from ground level. So take a lime as an example. So when I have a lime, I cut it open and I start eating it. Instead of just saying like a sour, we're diving into the five basic tastes. Sweet, sour, bitter, umami, and salty. When we do an exercise like that together, we write down from aroma, fragrance, which is we start from smelling them. And I remember doing this exercise and realized for the very first time, lime on its own is not just sharp, bright, and acidic, it's actually salty. And then we would tone down our levels to match each other and at the same time would explain why I would taste this this way. So this is how we stay calibrated in the professional setting. However, how do we stay calibrated with people who enjoy our coffee that is not in coffee? And that's when you see bags of coffee that says that it tastes like Jolly Rancher, tastes like cotton candy. So These are terms that it's a little bit more common that people can actually figure it out and also think about it. And it's also more fun and personally I think it's less scary. So if I get a bag of coffee that tastes like fruity Pebbles, I would know for sure that oh, it's a mixed bag of fruits, tastes like a red sangria, then I know it's going to be a little bit boozy. And also like a lot of like red grape compared to like, if you want to go straight into like this coffee tastes like orange, strawberry and kiwi. I think after brewing it, sipping it and looking at the label helps you understand the flavor.

[A]

When I'm buying coffee, should I be buying whole bean or ground?

[C]

I think whole bean is always the go to because once you ground the coffee, you're exposing the coffee areas a lot more. So chances of it degassing, getting stale is a lot quicker even though you seal them. But that's a very practical reason of why you do not want to ground your coffee ahead of time is because you don't know how you want to brew it. So if let's say you have a bag of coffee and you pre ground or you bought it pre ground, they're only going to be good for like filter. You won't be able to make any adjustment or cater it to a different brew stall.

[A]

Another term I've been curious about, roast date. What does that mean relative to my buying and then making and drinking a cup of coffee?

[C]

So when we talk about roast date, it's technically when is the beans getting roasted and finished and packaged? That date tells you the freshness. When you have a bag of coffee that is super fresh, let's say it's roasted yesterday and you brew it right away, it's not always going to be the best results because there are still a lot of things going on with the coffee after we finish roasting. So what we like is to have a rest period. And that's one of the reason why we want to pay attention to the roast date. The sooner you brew your coffee after the roast date, it's actually harder for you to extract the coffee so it will not taste as good as if the coffee has been sitting in the bag for five days or more.

[A]

The flavors won't be as deep.

[C]

Yes, not only that, you might get a lot of like smokiness, gassiness or what we call like grassiness right after roast. And sometimes when we cup coffee together, a very common flavor call that we will be getting if the coffee is way too fresh, is roasted beef. Yes. So as soon as it rests and open up, you'll get a lot more benefit from the beverage itself.

[A]

So in terms of shorthand, how long generally are you going to want to wait?

[C]

Ideally, seven days. Rule of thumb is, if you have a lighter roast, chances of it resting low, longer, it's going to be better.

[A]

Can you briefly explain the differences between light, medium and dark roasts?

[C]

Light, medium and dark roast is when we see the color of the beans itself. Very, very subjective, because somebody's dark roast can be somebody's medium roast. However, what I like to see when someone is talking about light, medium and dark roses, it is almost always reflected in the way that the bag of coffee has the calls. So light roast coffee, you will always see a lot of herbaceous, floral and fruit notes in the back.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Medium roast of coffee, you will see a little bit more of the fruit, but at the same time you get some sort of brown sugar like vanilla or like cooked berries. Think about pineapple or peach that you throw it on top of a grill kind. So that will be your medium rose. And if it's a dark rose, look out for notes like caramel, dark chocolate, roasted hazelnut, almonds. These are all sign that can tell you a little bit more on that. As long as you're not tasting burnt or extreme bitterness from the dark roast itself, it will be great as a milk beverage. Or maybe that is the cup of coffee that you need to wake you up in the morning.

[A]

What are some of the ways you can determine the the taste of coffee beans based on where they're from?

[C]

Mm. This is exactly where gets very fascinating for me. I love how coffee tastes in different region. So coffee from the Asian region a lot of times is going to be lower acidity because of the elevation. And then coffee from the Americas, it's going to be a little bit more mild in acidity and more spice forward notes of apple and things like that. And then coffee from the African region will be brighter, fruity, more floral. So these are all the classic. But there's a lot of things changing right now, and people are getting more and more creative with fermentation technique. And it throws me off all the time. So I have a cup of coffee just maybe two to three weeks ago. It is actually a cup of coffee from Indonesia when I had it, it tastes like almost in high elevation Colombia because of the anaerobic natural process that they are putting onto it. So while we all have something to ground us to the taste now things are getting more and more complex.

[A]

Okay, so let's say I buy my coffee beans at the grocery store. I'm in the aisle. There are so many different options. What is your general guidance when you're looking up and down and trying to reach for a bag of whole bean coffee? What do I look for when you're

[C]

buying coffee in a grocery store? I think the first thing is pick the coffee that you like, how it tastes, the brew method it's roasted for, and then after that, you can look into regions that might excite you. You want to see something that is very common or not common if it's a bland, nor is a single origin. And finally, probably it's the roast date. You don't want to have something that has been sitting on a shelf for like six months or something like that.

[A]

And also you want it, it needs to have a roast date.

[C]

Yes, I think highly likely you will see roast date on each and every bag of coffee.

[A]

So thank you so much for joining us. This was amazingly helpful. Really, really appreciate it.

[C]

Thank you, Rosie.

[A]

All right, that's it on coffee beans. We'll link to the Coffee Project New York website in our show notes. Thank you for listening.

[C]

Bye.

[B]

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