The Best (And Worst) Coffee Beans To Brew For Espresso, According To A Pro

When you're shopping for coffee — either whole bean or pre-ground — and you want to try your hand at making espresso at home, it's a perfectly natural instinct to grab a bag of coffee that's labeled as espresso beans. But in fact, this is incorrect, because there's no such thing as an espresso coffee bean. We asked coffee expert and co-founder of Onyx Coffee Lab, Andrea Allen, for her advice in finding the best — and avoiding the worst — coffee beans for espresso. "Any coffee can be brewed as espresso," Allen told us. "It's best to think of espresso as a brew method that magnifies both the positive and negative aspects of a coffee." As a 2020 U.S. Barista Champ and 2021 World Barista runner-up, Allen knows all the coffee essentials that baristas swear by for brewing the perfect espresso. 

The ideal coffee beans for espresso depend on whether you'll be drinking it black or with milk. "Medium roasted, washed coffee from Colombia or Ethiopia makes incredible coffees to enjoy on their own or with milk," Allen explained. When coffee is harvested, the bean is actually a seed that's surrounded by a red fruit called the coffee cherry. Washing coffee is a process in which the fruit is washed off and the beans are soaked in water and then dried, resulting in a brighter tasting, almost fruity coffee. Both Columbian and Ethiopian coffees are smooth, medium-body coffees with fruit or floral overtones that will make a delightful macchiato or cappuccino.

If you want to explore an espresso that's more on the wild side, Allen recommends alternatively processed coffees such as natural, anaerobic, and carbonic macerated. When brewed as espresso, Allen says, "There's also a really fun experience to be had." Natural-processed coffee means the coffee cherries have been sun-dried and naturally fermented, which heightens their sweetness and intensity. In anaerobic processing, the coffee cherries (or sometimes just the seeds) have been fermented in sealed tanks with no or low oxygen, resulting in a full-bodied coffee that's similar in robustness and even flavor to a well-balanced red wine. Carbonic maceration involves fermenting the coffee cherries in carbon dioxide, and it also yields a coffee with wine-like characteristics. Like wine, carbonic-macerated coffee will have different flavor profiles depending on where and in what climate it's grown. 

As to the worst coffee beans for brewing espresso, Allen personally avoids dark-roasted beans. "The naturally produced oils from these coffees can create gunk inside the grinder that needs to be regularly cleaned out," she explained. Keeping a coffee grinder clean and odor-free is essential for any busy barista at a coffee bar or at home. Despite popular belief, light and medium-roast coffee beans have more caffeine than dark-roast beans, so if you're looking for a morning jolt, follow Allen's advice and use medium-roast beans for brewing espresso. Finally, to ensure you're buying the absolute freshest coffee beans, check this particular date printed on the bag.