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So you're interested in buying some high quality coffee? Here are some thoughts to help you get started.
Supermarkets
Generally speaking, a supermarket is not the place to go for quality coffee. That's not to say all coffee in supermarkets is bad. In fact, you can pick up some very decent stuff in many places, such as coffee from Union HandRoasted in Sainsbury's.
But most supermarket coffee will come ready-ground, which means it's not as fresh as it can be. And most coffee will not state the date the coffee was roasted, it will just have a "best before". So when you buy coffee from a supermarket, it may have been roasted and ground many months previously. Even it is has been well packaged it will have lost some of its flavour, and will degrade very quickly once opened.
Most supermarket coffee will have been produced in bulk. Consquently, less care and attention goes in to sourcing high quality beans. That's what most coffee is about - producing as many cups as possible at the lowest cost. Most people are happy with instant coffee or with coffee from a supermarket, and that's absolutely fine, but if you're reading this article you might be interested in something more.
Artisan roasteries
An "artisan" roastery is a company which focuses on sourcing and selling top quality coffee. It will typically be a small outfit, almost certainly run by people who are passionate about coffee (with highly developed taste buds!).
An artisan roastery will carefully select the beans it buys. The owners may travel extensively, trying beans at source. They may buy beans from one plantation one year but not the next, as coffee crops vary in quality from year to year.
If you buy from an artisan roastery, very probably the beans will have been roasted very soon before posting, perhaps even that same day. So whether you buy whole beans or ground, the coffee is as fresh as can be.
Most roasteries on this blog could be described as artisan.
The Internet
It's very easy to buy coffee over the internet, particularly in small quantities for use at home or in your office. The vast majority of artisan roasteries will have their own online shop. In my experience, delivery from these places is very swift and efficient.
Buying beans or ground
I would highly recommend buying a grinder and buying beans. That way, your coffee will keep for longer, and it will taste fresher. A decent grinder for home or work may only cost £30 or so (make sure it's a "burr" grinder). But if you're just getting started and don't want to stretch to a grinder just yet, almost all roasteries online will supply ground coffee.
When ordering ground coffee, try to select a grind which suits its use (if buying for a caffetiere, the grind should be more coarse than the grind for an espresso machine, for example).
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