How to Make Black Coffee Taste Good

Graduating from McDonalds and Starbucks lattes to something less decidedly sweet is step one, but where do you go now that you don’t regularly need (or want) all of that excess sugar and cream? Is it possible to learn how to make black coffee taste good?

The best tasting coffee to drink black will ultimately depend on your preferred coffee flavor profiles and the quality of the beans you buy. In our experience, the best black coffee is light-roasted, freshly ground, and brewed with care—ideally from beans that are fruit-forward, naturally processed versus washed process (see difference here), and roasted by one of the brands we mention below. We’ve found a Trade subscription is a great strategy to try a lot of different coffees and hone in on the one you like the most.

Keep reading as we nerd out on black coffee taste—what to think about, where to find the right beans for your preferences, plus our take on the best coffee brand to drink black.

What is the best tasting coffee to drink black?

We have to give the award for best tasting coffees to drink black to light roasts.

Don’t get us wrong, there is a time and place for a dark roast. But, unless you enjoy ultra-bitter, almost “burned flavored” coffee that shows no signs of its origin, you’re probably gonna wanna add a little cream and/or sugar to that French roast.

You can avoid the ashy, (in my opinion) harsh flavors of dark roasts by opting for their lighter cousins instead. This is especially true if you’re searching for black coffee for beginners.

✨ A short cut to the best tasting black coffee is to buy light roasts ✨

Dark roast versus light roast

Lighter roasts are less bitter and brighter overall. They retain their tasting notes more clearly, so you can get a sense of how the beans were processed (natural or washed?), where they’re from, and other flavor characteristics.

Generally speaking, lighter roasts are more acidic, but have less body.

Think of it this way: Once you roast your beans past a certain point, they all roughly taste the same. Lighter roasts = less roasting = more flavor variety = tastier coffee to drink black.

“The amount and duration of heat applied to [coffee] can be the difference between something that’s lightly browned, caramelized, and flavorful, and something that’s a smoking, burnt mess.” – Hiline Coffee

Coffee roast levels, close up

Read our guide to coffee roast levels for the average joe »

Roast level	Other names you might see	What to expect
Light roast	First crack, Half City, Cinnamon roast, Light City	Brighter, more acidic flavors; more of the bean’s origin and individual flavor characteristics come through
Medium roast	Full City, American, Breakfast, “Regular”	More body and roast flavor while still retaining some of the coffee’s original characteristics
Dark roast	French, Italian, Continental, Espresso, New Orleans, Viennese, European	Heavy roast flavors; typically smokier, more bitter or charred, with less origin character

Dark Roasts

Again, you might like to drink these coffees black (I won’t yuck your yum). But if you want to learn how to discern flavor profiles or appreciate the terroir of coffee grown in different regions, you’ll want to avoid dark roasts, as they all roughly taste the same (in a word… charred).

Medium-Roast Coffees

If you like more oily coffee with body and actually enjoy a more “roasty flavor,” medium and medium-dark blends will be your jam. We think medium coffees have a lot of redeeming qualities so we add them to our at-home coffee lineup from time to time.

Light Roasts

You can find plenty of light coffee roasts that are absolutely delicious to drink black. To find bags of coffee with lighter roasts, look for descriptive words like..

Full disclosure: We’re pretty obsessed with light roasts in our house and rarely drink any other roast-levels. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Our Trade coffee queue is chockful of them.

Consider roast dates, too

Want a simple life hack for how to make black coffee taste good? It basically boils down to: Only buy recently roasted light- to medium-roast coffee. Key word being recently.

As Will & Co. Coffee says: “Though coffee beans last and can taste okay for a year from the roast date if left unopened, they still lose their flavor and freshness over time and will begin to go stale. We always recommend only buying what you need so you know your coffee will taste fresh with each brew.”

And unless you’re paying beaucoup bucks for a fancy coffee canister like the Fellow Atmos, you’d be wise to drink your coffee closer-to its roast date.

And please don’t toss your bags of beans into the freezer. Taking coffee in and out can expose the beans to moisture and condensation, which isn’t doing your coffee flavors any favors. If you bought more coffee than you can reasonably drink while it’s fresh, freezing can actually be a great option if you portion it into airtight containers and only thaw what you’re ready to use.

The best coffee brands to drink black we’ve found

We drink a lot of black coffee in the Foxlee household, so we have a LOT of opinions about the best black coffee brand. There’s no way around it: Learning how to enjoy drinking coffee black requires you invest in higher-quality coffee beans from the get-go.

Any of these would be strong contenders on a list of the best coffee for coffee snobs. But scroll to #1 to see our absolute favorite. We decided to try out a Trade coffee subscription this year and its really upped our black coffee game, so I am updating this article with new recommendations. It’s one of the best coffee subscription boxes in our experience.

Ok, here’s a short-list of the best pour over coffee beans we’ve found—our go-to coffee brands for drinking black.

10. Foxtail Coffee Roasters – Orlando, FL

Honestly, Foxtail Coffee’s natural-processed black cold brew blew our minds the first time we tried it. It was so sweet and fruity, it tasted how we wish juice tasted all of the time!

Foxtail’s cold brew coffee flight availability makes it one of the best black coffee for beginners—you can get a feel for how different coffee beans can yield different flavor profiles.

» Learn more: How to make great cold brew at home with the Toddy system

9. Counter Culture – Durham, NC

Counter Culture’s Hologram blend was one of the first coffee drinking experiences that made me go wide-eyed. They pay careful attention to their sourcing, yielding coffees that are both fruit-forward AND chocolatey? How do they do it?!

I’m not sure, but I’m glad they did.

8. Dagger Mountain Roasters – Valparaiso, IN

Dagger Mountain Roasters not only offers an incredible space, their coffees are a good entry-level tasting experience for those new to drinking coffee black. Don’t even try to get away with sneaking some Half n Half into your brew—there’s no creamer available on the premises!

It’s a great spot to jump into the deep end. Or simply buy their coffee online and take baby steps to building your black coffee taste…

7. Sweetbloom Coffee – Lakewood, CO

When we heard Andy Sprenger started a coffee shop in the greater Denver metro, we jumped on the chance to check them out. We always keep our eyes on their website for new natural-processed offerings—sometimes even Geishas—but typically end up adding their Hometown Blend to our cart, which we think is one of their most consistently best tasting coffees to drink black.

You can drink their coffee in Lakewood at their roaster, in Arvada where they merged spaces with Two Rivers Coffee, or at their tasting room called “Sapor” in Denver’s Highlands. Or just order online (free shipping after $50 spend)! You’ll be drinking delicious black coffee in no time.

It’s one of our top recommendations for the best coffee for French press, too.

6. Madcap Coffee Roasters – Grand Rapids, MI

Another midwest favorite of ours is Madcap Coffee. One of the perks of a roastery like Madcap is that they always have tons of different options on hand for coffee drinkers. So, no matter your preferred flavor profile—fruity, citrusy, chocolatey, caramely?—you’re likely going to find an option (or two) at their roastery or on their website.

If you’re feeling fancy and adventurous, try their Cascara product and take your “coffee tasting” to a whole new level! You can also take their new subbrand Dito for a spin. We’re hoping to try it in a few weeks when we’re ready for our next black coffee drink.

5. Blue Bottle – Oakland, CA

My first snobby coffee love, I always have to give a hat-tip to Blue Bottle. They have done for third wave coffee what Starbucks did for second wave. I know this photo pictures coffee with cream in it, but they remain the best black coffee brand from my (admittedly still limited) coffee journeys.

I just love its minimalist design and the consistent quality from coast to coast. I’ve tried their light roast coffees black in NYC and Oakland and it always rocks my socks.

We drank an “exceedingly rare” specialty-roast, Costa Rica Tarrazú La Lia Black Honey Anaerobic, from Blue Bottle Coffee black the first day of our marriage. To that end, it continues to hold a special place in my lil’ Foxlee heart.

4. Tandem Coffee – Portland, ME

I thought the 2021 queues at Tandem Coffee Roasters were because of pandemic-era line management strategies, but I went back earlier this month and there were still hoards of people waiting for their chance to order a coffee and pick up a pastry.

And honestly, it’s worth the wait. I haven’t fallen this hard for a cup of coffee in a minute — its Chelchele Ethiopia Natural had the strong, berry aroma and flavor that brings me SO much joy.

You can get a helpful introduction to black coffee tastes through their Single Origin taster pack. It comes with four 8 ounce bags. You can also grab a sampler back of their year-round blends, link here.

3. Harbinger Coffee – Fort Collins, CO

It’d be wrong to write a list of the best coffee brands to drink black without including a shout out to our FoCo favorite (the town where the LKCSs met and fell in love). Jonathan behind Harbinger Coffee knows his stuff—and by “stuff,” we mean how to roast, how to engage customers, and how to create all-around delightful coffee moments for regular joes like us.

Their Chele Chele roast (pictured above) is only available about once a year, but to get us through the off-times, we like to arm our coffee station with their Yabitu Koba Forest blend.

2. Perc Coffee Roasters – Savannah, GA

We think Perc Coffee Roasters has definitely figured out how to make black coffee taste good. We have enjoyed a few bags from them via our Trade subscription (namely the Tanzania Nyasi Furaha Peaberry, the Ethiopia Sasaba, and the Papua New Guinea Wahgi Valley), so we simply *had* to pop by and see it for ourselves when we were ambling around the Southeast earlier this year.

And it did not disappoint.

Now I fangirl regularly over their interesting products (a Colombia Jairo Arcila Lychee & Cinnamon Co-Ferment!?) and eye-popping design.

We also tried its blend from China recently just for fun and were pleasantly surprised—though tbh, we wouldn’t order again. (China has a long way to go to meet the quality of other destinations!)

1. Dune Coffee – Santa Barbara, CA

In our (admittedly-narrow-but-still-wider-than-average) experience, the best coffee to drink black is from Dune Coffee. Dune consistently roasts coffees that are clean, expressive, and naturally sweet, which is exactly what you need if you’re drinking it black. There’s no bitterness to mask and no harshness to dilute.

We were also introduced to Dune via our Trade subscription and were so excited to get the chance to visit the roaster in Santa Barbara itself on our “suncation” in February (when you live in the grey and dreary Great Lakes region, you need a Vitamin D adventure to survive the winter blues).

One reason I love Dune is because it is bringing COLOR back to the third wave coffee scene — it’s brand is bright and fun and reminds me that you don’t have to be stuffy to treasure a good cup of black coffee.

Snag any Ethiopia from them. We tried and loved their Ethiopia Yaye Natural, but they have lots of great single origins to choose from.

The black coffee starter kit

Say ‘sayonara’ to adding milk or sugar to hide flaws. If you’re interested in brewing delicious black coffee at home, here are our go-to tools.

• A great bag of beans. See above ^^.
• A precise coffee scale, like the Hario Pour-Over Scale. This measures the weight of the beans before you grind and later helps you track the amount of water poured into your brew system.
• A burr grinder. These vary significantly in quality. For us, it mattered to have more precision grinding so that we could use the same grinder for, say, French Press (coarser grind size) to AeroPress (finer grind size). That’s why we opted for the Baratza Encore. Here’s our full review.
• A trusty kettle. We upgraded our Bonavita Gooseneck Electric Kettle recently to the Fellow Stagg Kettle. After 5 years of near-daily use, it died on us. We jumped on the opportunity to try a new brand, but we were honestly really happy with the Bonavita. Oh, and a quick TL;DR on kettle selection — an electric gooseneck kettle is preferred to other types of kettles, as the electric allows you to control temps. And why gooseneck? The design allows you to better control water flow rates for making pour over.
• A coffee maker. We make pour over with a Kalita Wave everyday (it is easier than it sounds). You can choose a Chemex, a French Press, a different pour over system, heck — even a traditional coffee maker (we love our Bonavita 8C or our 10-Cup Chemex for when we have company). Learn all the different brew methods and their differences »

How to train yourself to drink black coffee

Finding the best black coffee for beginners takes baby steps. If you’re ready to train yourself to drink black coffee, start here:

• Throw out the cream and sugar. Out of sight, out of mind!
• Start with flights. If you have the ability to taste-test multiple types of coffee side-by-side, you’ll begin to appreciate flavor nuances and zero-in on which coffees you like to drink black. If you can attend a cupping, that’s even better. You can even look for coffee cupping events near you — for instance, Metro Coffee in Chicago offers free public cuppings every Friday.
• Pay attention. If you’re not consciously consuming your coffee, you’re not going to be able to discern patterns in your flavor preferences. Take notes if you’re nerdy, and be sure to mark down where it was grown, the process type, whether its a blend or single-origin, and of course, where you got it!
• Once you find a coffee bean you enjoy, try it multiple ways. We think brewing coffee at home is a fun game, even more so when you can try coffee black made with a pour over vs. cold brew vs. French press, for instance.

Voila! You like coffee black. You are closer to knowing the types of coffee beans you love (essential for transitioning to the no-cream-no-sugar world) and even how to brew your coffee beans to get the most pleasing flavor for your palette. Woot!

FAQs on the taste of black coffee

What’s the best black coffee at Starbucks?

To be safe, choose the blonde espresso roast and get an Americano hot or iced (that’s espresso + water). We’ve also been known to opt for cold brew (and a yummy cold foam topping).

What do black coffee and salt do?

While researching this article on how to like black coffee, I found a lot of videos and content related to adding a bit of salt to your black coffee to take out the bitterness. I’m not sure if this is a valid tactic but I’m curious to test it, so I’ll report back soon!!

What’s the best brewing method for black coffee?

We’re pour over people, so that’s our vote. A good pour over tends to produce a clean, clear cup that makes it easier to taste the more subtle flavors of the coffee — AKA the fruity, floral, chocolatey, or otherwise interesting flavors we paid good money for. 🤪

But there isn’t one objectively “best” way to make black coffee. An AeroPress, drip coffee maker, French press, or even cold brew can all make delicious coffee without cream or sugar. Good beans, freshly ground and brewed well, will get you a lot further than obsessing over the brewer itself.

» Learn more: How do you make good coffee at home?

You now know how to drink black coffee without sugar or cream!

We love the taste of black coffee, but want you to feel encouraged knowing that, for most people, transitioning to black coffee is a journey of discovery rather than a sudden leap.

By focusing on light to medium roasts, prioritizing freshly roasted beans, and exploring quality brands like those highlighted, you can unlock a world of exciting (albeit still subtle) flavors. Experimenting with different brewing methods and paying close attention to your palate will further refine your taste.

Ultimately, embracing black coffee opens up a richer, more authentic coffee experience, proving that less can indeed be more.

Welcome to the Big Kids Black Coffee Club. It’s great to have you.