Reading a coffee label: roast date, process, and origin

Specialty coffee bags are dense with information. Most of it is useful, but a few fields are especially helpful when you want to understand what to expect in the cup. This is a short orientation to the labels you are most likely to see on a European specialty bag.

Roast date

Specialty roasters print a roast date on the bag, not a best-before date. As a rough rule, filter coffee tends to drink well from about a week to about six weeks after roast; espresso often benefits from another week to settle. Daily Roast does not display roast dates on roaster pages because we cannot verify them from the outside — the bag in your hand is the source of truth.

Origin

Origin tells you the country, and often the region, farm, or co-operative. Region and farm-level detail give you a more specific picture than country alone. A named farm and harvest can also give you useful questions to ask the roaster about how the coffee was sourced.

Process

Process describes what happens between picking and drying — how much of the fruit stays on the bean, and for how long. Washed, natural, honey, and various anaerobic methods are the terms you'll see most. Each tends to push the coffee in a different flavour direction — the Process guides cover that in more depth.

Variety

Variety is the cultivar of the coffee plant. It is genuinely useful information for a curious drinker, but it is also a field that may be missing or simplified on a label. Treat it as a hint, not a guarantee.