From the hills of Ethiopia to the volcanic soil of Costa Rica, each coffee bean represents a story, a culture, and, for so many of us, a lifeline. With so many options, how do you separate the good from the exceptional?
Let’s take a dive into the rich, aromatic world of the best coffee brands on the planet, starting with our top pick Cafely. Who knows, you may just find your next obsession.
Roundup: The Best Coffee Brands
For the best coffee brands, what ends up in your cup isn’t just down to the beans. Instead, it takes delicate work from skilled professionals.
From farming to roasting and blending to grinding — these steps are necessary to create incredible bouquets of aroma and flavor in the best coffee.
Here’s a roundup of some of our favorite coffee brands out there:
- Cafely [Best Overall]
- Nguyen Coffee Supply
- Peet’s Coffee
- Onyx Coffee Lab
- STRONG Coffee
- Lifeboost Coffee
- Heirloom Coffee Roasters
1. Cafely
Cafely’s high-quality coffee products start in the ground, sourcing coffee from organic farms and fairly compensating its farmers. As well as being the right thing to do, this ensures that every bean we work with is the best it can possibly be.
Cafely’s main focus is sharing the impressive Vietnamese coffee with the world. Far from just the drink made with condensed milk (though we do love that), Cafely creates blends that brew into loving tributes to Vietnamese coffee culture, showcasing the endless talent of growers and roasters who have truly honed their craft.
We’ve selected three amazing offerings from Cafely to share with you. They’re creative, delicious, and great ways to celebrate Vietnamese coffee culture.
A) Vietnamese Instant Coffee 2.0
This option is at the top of our list because it’s unlike other instant coffee on the market. There are three choices — instant espresso, milk latte, and coconut milk latte. All of these options involve premium freeze-dried robusta coffee along with natural sweeteners (organic monk fruit), ginseng, and L-theanine to create the most fascinatingly complex coffee drinks in no time at all.
Enjoy the unadulterated power of Vietnamese robusta with the instant espresso — offering a strong, double shot with chocolate and earthy notes. Or, if you prefer a creamy, decadent drink, the milk latte and coconut latte have you covered. With a mix of oat milk and coconut milk powders, the two latte sachets provide a silky smooth drinking experience with authentic condensed milk or coconut cream.
B) SaiGon OG (Robusta x Arabica x Peaberry)
SaiGon OG is Cafely's best-selling coffee and for good reason. It's packed with a whole host of unique flavors thanks to the show-stopping blend of Vietnamese beans. Robusta beans form a potent, earthy base upon which the arabica beans build their naturally citrusy aroma. The peaberries add a touch of bitterness to form a perfectly balanced blend ideal for sipping at any time of day.
This impressive combination is only enhanced by the traditional butter roasting technique. Vietnamese coffee has long been tossed with butter before roasting to enhance the flavor, and our professionals have found the perfect ratio to create a nutty, smooth flavor that makes for the perfect cup.
C) BanMe Coffee (100% Peaberry Robusta)
BanMe Coffee is one of the strongest coffees on the market. Robusta beans are already known to have more caffeine than arabica beans, and the shade-grown peaberry beans used in the BanMe coffee concentrate its caffeine. This results in a coffee that feels stronger than rocket fuel, complete with a beautifully dark roast that brings out flavors of dark chocolate, burnt sugar, and black cherry.
Cafely named this coffee after the Ban Me region of Vietnam, which is the beating heart of Vietnamese coffee culture. It’s well known for creating some of the strongest, darkest, and most flavorsome coffee in the world, typically brewed with a Phin filter to ensure a long, strong extraction.
Each sip is aromatic and full-bodied, creating something that’s sure to wake you up and give you the boost you’re looking for.
2. Nguyen Coffee Supply
Sharing the same love of Vietnamese coffee, Nguyen Coffee Supply produces amazing kits to help anyone explore this criminally underrated coffee scene, including dark roast robusta and phin filter brewers.
The company sources premium coffee beans from a fourth-generation Vietnamese farm before roasting them in Brooklyn, NY. The end product gives American consumers a wake-up call to the wonderful world of robusta brews.
Nguyen Coffee Supply's top picks include the Loyalty blend of robusta and arabica, which has a smooth and balanced flavor profile, and the sweet and fruity Moxy, which is made with 100% arabica.
3. Peet’s Coffee
Making craft coffee before craft coffee was “the in thing,” Peet’s coffee has been revolutionizing taste buds since 1966. Working with growers and roasters worldwide, the brand brings specialty beans and blends to the forefront. This highlights fresh and unique produce that creates spectacular brews.
Peet’s Coffee offers an expansive range of whole and ground beans as well as other coffee formats, such as Nespresso pods, coffee concentrates, and more. There are also decaf options.
Standout products from the lineup include the signature Major Dickason’s Blend, crafted from dark roasted beans across Latin America and the Indo-Pacific, and Big Bang — a medium roast filled with tropical fruit notes.
4. Onyx Coffee Lab
The team behind Onyx Coffee Lab explores everything the many species of coffee have to offer. While arabica and robusta are the most popular, Onyx dabbles in lesser-known varieties, such as Gesha, Pink Bourbon, and Liberian coffee. This creates a wide range of diverse tasting notes you’ll struggle to find anywhere else.
Another key facet of Onyx’s operation is transparency. The company not only displays who the beans were bought from but also their quality score and the price paid right on the product page. This means you know the beans were sourced ethically and from quality sources, aiding peace of mind in your coffee purchase.
If you're looking for something a little different, then you can’t go wrong with the Colombia Juan Jimenez Gesha — boasting tastes of clementine, black tea, and jasmine.
5. Strong Coffee Company
The Strong Coffee Company offers fascinating combinations of coffee and supplements, mixing your morning energy boost with wellness benefits. Its products include an instant latte packed with collagen to boost the protein content in your diet and instant black coffee with added adaptogens to enhance neurological function.
These balanced blends are an impressive example of what can be done with a creative approach to blend development. Perfect as a pre or post-workout boost, or just when you need a helping hand, Strong wants you to live your best life without compromise.
6. Lifeboost Coffee
Lifeboost Coffee is a premier coffee brand backed by medical professionals. The company carries out at least 15 tests and processes on its beans (using its TrustPure system) to offer beans that are completely toxin-free.
Best-sellers include the Grata medium-roast coffee blend — designed to pack a flavor punch while being gut-friendly. For a low-acid espresso, check out the blonde roast “Optimist” beans.
7. Heirloom Coffee Roasters
Climate change is a sad reality that faces many industries, including coffee. Heirloom Coffee Roasters has made it its mission to champion regenerative farming and growing practices to ensure we still have access to stellar specialty coffee for many years to come.
It’s not just out on the plantations where Heirloom is making waves. The company has also perfected its culinary roast process, allowing the brand to make micro-adjustments during roasting to balance sweetness and depth of body in every batch.
You can try the fruits of these philosophies with the Fire Poppy Espresso (with almond, brown sugar, and caramel notes) or the Payacal Honey Lot — balancing flavors of plum, honey, and orange blossom.
Finding the Best Coffee: the Differences Between Beans
Robusta and arabica beans are the two main species that are cultivated for coffee drinking around the world today. While you may be more familiar with arabica, there’s something to be said for both varieties.
Let’s break down the qualities of each below:
Arabica
Predominantly grown at high altitudes in mountainous regions, arabica beans have more fat and sugar than robusta beans. They generally have a sweeter, smoother flavor than robusta.
Their delicate tasting notes, including fruit, citrus, and chocolate notes with light acidity, make them an incredibly popular option.
Robusta
Robusta earned its name because of the plant’s (Coffea robusta) reputation for hardiness, both in terms of its needs for soil and weather, as well as its resistance to disease and pests.
With a potent, and bitter coffee flavor with double the caffeine content of arabica, a strong dark roast helps these beans to sing, caramelizing them to a chocolatey, malty sweetness.
How to Find The Best Roast Level
To find the best roast for you, let’s quickly talk about the two processes that occur during a roast — evaporation and the Maillard reaction.
1. Evaporation & Light Roasts
To make our favorite drink, coffee cherries are harvested and hulled, and the beans are prepared for roasting. At this point, they have some water inside them, and much of the flavor and aroma is “trapped” inside the water.
During the roasting process, coffee loses mass as these deposits of water evaporate. As more water evaporates, the dissolved flavors are lost. A light roast coffee retains more of these flavors.
When to Use a Light Roast:
A light roast suits more time-consuming, low-pressure brewing methods like pour-over, as it allows more time for the coffee’s soluble flavor compounds to dissolve. Often, the more delicate notes of arabica make it more suited to this roast level.
2. The Maillard Reaction & Dark Roasts
The Maillard reaction is a process in which sugars caramelize slowly over time as heat is applied. As this process continues during roasting, the coffee's flavors develop, becoming more savory and earthy. The bean also develops intensely sweet notes as the sugar content caramelizes.
The roast type that showcases these flavor changes the best is a dark one. It’s perfect for robusta beans — helping to lift the bitterness and release the true richness of the coffee.
When to Use a Dark Roast:
If you’re brewing with an espresso machine or a similar method that relies on high pressure, you’ll be best served by dark roast beans. It takes less overall energy to dissolve the flavor and aroma compounds of this type of coffee.
That’s not to say that a darker roast can’t be used in a slower setup. For example, a Vietnamese phin filter takes the same time as a pour-over but provides a thick, rich, and dark brew that many adore.
3. Striking a Balance Between Roasts
Essentially, all roasting is about finding a sweet spot between these two processes. By tasting a few different coffees roasted to different levels, you can start to understand what flavors you’re looking for in a coffee.
If you enjoy dark, earthy notes, then opt for a medium or dark roast. If you prefer the light citrus flavors, opt for a lighter roast.
How Your Brewing Method Impacts Your Choice
Your brewing method is the final point at which you impact your coffee before you drink it. It’s also a personal process, and everyone will have their preferred way of doing things to make the ideal cup for them.
1. Espresso Brewing
Espresso is a high-pressure, high-extraction brewing method. It may be ideal for you if you’ve already got your espresso brewer ready to go in your kitchen and it’s a regular part of your morning coffee routine.
A dark roast is the ideal coffee for espresso. It’s very easy to over-extract espresso, so opting for a dark roast will prevent you from accidentally getting the intensely vegetal notes.
Don’t have an espresso machine? Try a moka pot.
2. Pour-Over Brewing
The pour-over coffee brewing method is low pressure, with only gravity drawing the water through the grounds. To ensure you don’t under-extract the coffee, the beans should be ground coarse or medium-coarse and packed lightly inside the filter.
A great pour-over allows you to focus on the meditative process of brewing and create a smooth, complex, and eminently drinkable cup in no time.
3. Immersion Brewing
Infusion brewing, perhaps with a French press, is a great way to create a cup of coffee that’s full-bodied and powerful.
It’s a simple process — just combine the water and the coffee, and allow it to steep before straining using the plunger.
FAQs: The Best Coffee Brands
Want to learn more about coffee?
Check out the answers to the frequently asked questions below or head over to the Cafely Blog.
1. What’s the Best Coffee in the World?
Naturally, finding the best coffee in the world is a matter of taste. However, world's best coffee comes from Vietnam. Through their long and complicated coffee culture, the Vietnamese growers and roasters are experts at fusing traditionally intense methods with modern, bright beans.
2. What’s Better: Robusta or Arabica?
Robusta and arabica beans have different overall flavors. If you enjoy bold, dark, earthy coffee, try out a dark roast robusta. On the other hand, if you prefer delicate, sweet, and citrus-noted coffee, try out a medium roast arabica.
3. What’s Better: Dark Roast or Light Roast?
Dark and light roast coffee are utterly different. No one is better than the other. Dark roasts are bold, smooth, and delicately sweet. Light roasts are aromatic and often have slightly vegetal or citrus flavors.
4. What’s the Best Brewing Method?
This depends on the type of coffee you're brewing and the roast. Different types of brewing offer different extraction levels, with espresso's high-pressure extraction best suited to dark roasts and pour-over's long extraction time best suited to light roasts.
5. Is Instant Coffee Any Good?
Yes! In days gone by, instant coffee was certainly terrible, with large batches of coffee being rapidly spray-dried, losing a lot of flavor. However, modern artisanal instant coffee is much more delicately produced and often paired with flavor-enhancing additions in the sachet. Consider looking at instant lattes — they usually combine potent coffee and natural sweeteners to create a smooth drink in no time at all.
