Finding the Right Coffee Is Harder Than It Looks

When I first started working on Sabrosito Coffee, I thought choosing the right coffee would be simple.

Order some samples, brew a few cups, pick the best one, and move on.

That was cute.

The truth is, finding the right coffee has been one of the most important and frustrating parts of building Sabrosito. Not frustrating in a bad way, exactly. More like the kind of frustrating where you are surrounded by coffee cups, notes, bags, measurements, and at some point you start wondering if the coffee is judging you back.

From the beginning, I knew I did not want to pick a coffee just because it sounded fancy. A nice origin name or a beautiful label is great, but at the end of the day, the coffee still has to taste good in a real cup, in a real kitchen, for real people.

I also did not want Sabrosito to become one of those brands with twenty different options and nobody knows what to choose. I wanted to start simple. Two coffees. One smooth daily coffee, and one bolder espresso-style option.

Simple sounds easy.

It is not.

My tasting process is not complicated, but I do try to keep it fair. Each coffee is measured the same way. Same amount of water. Same amount of coffee. Same amount of sugar when testing that way. Between tests, the coffee maker gets flushed with water to help reduce flavor carryover.

Basically, I am trying to avoid blaming one coffee for what the previous coffee did. That would be unfair. Coffee deserves due process too.

I am testing each one carefully, one at a time, because drinking twelve coffees in one day sounds like a bad life choice. I want to make smart decisions, not start vibrating through the walls.

Every coffee is judged on things that actually matter to me:

• Does it smell like coffee should smell?
• Is the flavor smooth or too sharp?
• Would I drink this every morning?
• Would I confidently hand this to a customer?
• Does it match the kind of coffee Sabrosito is supposed to represent?

That last question is the big one.

Sabrosito is not just about selling coffee. It is about building trust. If someone buys a bag from us, I want them to feel like care went into the decision. I want them to know the coffee was not picked randomly from a spreadsheet because it had a good profit margin.

I am not trying to be the biggest coffee company. I am not trying to be the loudest. I am trying to build something honest, local, family-owned, veteran-owned, and worth coming back to.

That means the coffee has to earn its place.

The headaches are part of the process. The second-guessing is part of the process too. Some days I taste something and think, “This might be it.” Other days I think, “Maybe I should just sell mugs and emotional support beans.”

But honestly, that is what makes this worth doing. If I did not care, I would just pick the easiest option and move on. But I do care. A lot.

I want Sabrosito Coffee to be something people can trust. Something simple, consistent, and good. Something you can drink in the morning without needing a dictionary, a tasting wheel, or a motivational speech.

My granddaughter also joined the unofficial Sabrosito research team. Her credentials are simple: honest taste buds and absolutely no concern for hurting anyone’s feelings.

When one coffee had too much sharpness or acidity, she described it as tasting like “peppers.” And honestly, that may be better than half the fancy tasting notes I have read.

But the best moment came when she liked one coffee enough to ask, before taking another sip, if it was “the good one.” That is the kind of feedback you pay attention to. No marketing language. No coffee snob vocabulary. Just a real reaction from someone who knows what she likes. 🤣

So the search continues. One cup at a time. One note at a time. One slightly over-caffeinated decision at a time.