When your parents or grandparents were growing up there were only a few types of coffee.

At home, there was instant coffee and brewed coffee. In a restaurant, there was hot coffee and iced coffee. (Or maybe they preferred decaf.) Italian or “cultured” coffee drinkers might have known about espresso and cappuccino, and you could order Irish coffee in a bar. 

Today? Even most teenagers probably know the difference between an Americano and a Macchiato, although they might prefer a Strawberries and Cream Frappuccino or a Vanilla Chai.

But if you’re still a little baffled when the barista asks for your order – or you’re simply searching for a new, yummy type of coffee to try – we’ve got you covered.

Here’s your connoisseur’s guide to coffee.

Let’s take care of some preliminary business before discussing all of the delicious drinks you can make with coffee.

The flavor and aroma of any coffee will largely depend on the type of beans used to make it. So we’ll begin by looking at the varieties of coffee beans most commonly used to make everyone’s favorite beverage.

Arabica Beans

Once upon a time, people who cared about their beans were often dismissed as “coffee nerds.” However, that was before premium coffee companies started bragging about using 100% Arabica beans.

That advertising helped coffee drinkers understand the clear truth: beans make a big difference, and Arabica beans produce better coffee.

Today, Arabica is the world’s most popular coffee bean, accounting for well over half of all beans sold. That’s for a good reason: they’re the highest-quality coffee beans you can easily buy.

Arabica is rich, smooth and complex, with more acidity than other beans. Perhaps most importantly, it’s not bitter, mostly due to its higher sugar content.

These beans come from the Coffea Arabica plant, which originated either in Yemen or Ethiopia. Arabica is now grown around the world, including in Latin America, but it’s a small and relatively-fragile plant that takes years to mature. It only flourishes at high elevations in cool, subtropical climates, where the soil is rich and moist and ample shade is available.

All of those cultivation requirements make Arabica plants more difficult to grow than other varieties.

Understandably, that means Arabica beans are substantially more expensive than the other types of beans commonly available, Robusta. Many coffee companies blend the two together to reduce their production costs.

One of the terrific properties of Arabica coffee is that it can contain many different flavor notes, depending on where and how the beans were grown.

Robusta Beans

When you buy an inexpensive bag of beans or cup of coffee, chances are good that you’ll be drinking Robusta. It’s the second-most popular coffee variety, mostly because of the beans’ dramatically-lower price and bountiful supply.

Robusta might be the right choice if you need to stay awake since it has a much higher caffeine content than Arabica. However, it’s harsher and more bitter because it contains half the sugar of Arabica, along with a high pyrazine content.

Many find Robusta difficult to drink on its own, but a small amount of Robusta beans is often added to Arabica beans to give espresso a more powerful finish and better crema. Robusta is also commonly used to make instant coffee.

Robusta beans are harvested from the Coffea canephora plant, native to Africa but grown around the world. It’s a much hardier plant than Arabica; it requires much less care, it’s able to thrive at lower altitudes and in less forgiving climates, it’s resistant to most pests, and it produces crops every year.

Bottom line: an acre of Robusta plants can produce far more coffee beans than an acre of Arabica plants, at a much lower cost.

Other Types of Beans

You’re not likely to find anything other than Arabica or Robusta beans at your local store, and it’s rare for high-end coffee vendors to use other types of beans.

But they do exist.

• Liberica beans (Coffea liberica) produce a strong, nutty and slightly fruity coffee, which is extremely difficult to find – unless you’re in the Philippines, where it’s sold as Barako coffee and is quite popular. In other nations, it’s usually found only in markets or cafés that cater to the Filipino community.
• Excelsa beans are similar in many ways to Liberica beans; in fact, they’ve just recently been classified as a variant of Liberica. Coffee made from these beans is tart, dark and complex, with less caffeine. The beans are also extremely difficult to find since they’re primarily grown and consumed in Asia.

Ready for a terrific cup of coffee or an exotic coffee drink?

We figured you were – but we’re not quite there yet. It’s also important to look at the different ways to brew coffee because the brew has a major impact on coffee’s strength and flavor. Let’s check them out before we start playing barista.

Drip Coffee

Traditional brewed coffee is prepared in – not surprisingly – a drip coffee maker. Boiling water is dripped over ground coffee beans, the water passes through the beans and a filter and drips into a pot, ready to drink.

Drip coffee is easy to prepare, and when made with the same type of beans in the same machine, should always taste the same.

Pour-Over Coffee

This is essentially the “manual version” of drip coffee making (although you can now buy pour-over machines). Hot water is still poured over ground beans, but the ideal water temperature, brewing time, and amount of coffee grounds can be chosen individually for every cup.

Pour-over takes more time and care, but can produce better coffee than the drip method. A French press (actually invented in Italy) does much the same thing, but with different mechanics.

Cold Brew Coffee

If you’ve ever made iced tea on your porch, you know how to make cold brew. Room temperature or cold water is poured into ground coffee and left to steep for 12-24 hours. However, it will wind up extremely strong, more like an extract than actual coffee, so it’s usually diluted with cold water before it’s ready to drink.

Cold brew coffee can be brewed manually or with a cold brew machine. Be aware, though, that it’s not the same thing as iced coffee which is just regular coffee served over ice. Cold brew is smoother and less bitter.

Espresso

Made in a dedicated espresso machine, this classic is the product of pressurized hot water forced through a filter containing finely-ground beans. It’s thicker and stronger (and contains more caffeine) than regular coffee, it ends up topped with a foam crema, and is usually measured in one-ounce shots.

Espresso is the base for a large number of coffee drinks. It’s similar to darker and more concentrated ristretto, which is brewed in the same way but with half the water.

Many of the types of coffee you can order at a high-end coffee outlet are made using these brews and techniques – but it’s fun to make them on your own, too.

Ready for a cup? So are we.