Think you know coffee? Probably. But there are a few ideas that have been circulating for years in cafes, kitchens, and social media that are simply not true. Here are ten of them.

There's nothing wrong with liking coffee without knowing everything about it. The problem is when misconceptions prevent us from trying better coffee, realizing what we're drinking, or making informed choices. These ten myths are among the most common — some even sound so reasonable it's hard not to believe them.

Good coffee is coffee that I like.“

Start with the most philosophical. And yes, there's a kernel of truth here: taste is personal, and no one's forcing you to like what you don't like. But to say that coffee quality is purely subjective is a huge leap.

Coffee is evaluated with technical and objective criteria by certified professionals — the Q Graders — that analyze attributes such as aroma, acidity, body, sweetness, uniformity, and absence of defects. A coffee can be objectively unbalanced, with fermentation defects or burnt rubber notes, regardless of whether someone finds it “good.”.

The simplest parallel: a dish can be poorly seasoned, cooked at the wrong temperatures, with spoiled ingredients—and someone might still enjoy it. That doesn't mean it's a good dish. Tastes are personal, but quality has standards.

That said, knowing these patterns helps you better understand what you're drinking, even if, in the end, your favorite coffee is one with a lower score.

Decaf coffee isn't real coffee / it's always bad coffee“

Decaf carries an unfair reputation that stems from decades of mediocre industrial processing. For a long time, decaffeination was done with harsh chemical solvents that left the bean with very little flavor and a flat, bitter profile.

Today, methods have evolved. The Swiss Water Process (Swiss Water Process), for example, removes caffeine without chemical solvents, preserving the aromatic compounds of the bean. There are single-origin, high-scoring decaffeinated coffees, carefully processed, that prove the absence of caffeine does not imply an absence of quality.

We should note that the bitterness of coffee also comes from caffeine – therefore, decaffeinated coffee will, by default, be sweeter and less bitter than “normal” coffee.

Decaffeinated coffee is coffee. It's the same bean, the same roasting process, the same brewing protocol. The only difference is that it goes through an additional process to remove most of the caffeine. If the raw material is good and the process is done well, the result can be excellent.

Dark coffee has more caffeine.“

This is perhaps the most ingrained myth of all. The intuition seems logical: a darker, more intense, “stronger” coffee—it must have more caffeine, right?

Wrong.

Caffeine is an extraordinarily stable molecule during the roasting process. To be significantly destroyed, temperatures above 315°C would be required—well above the 235°C that is the limit of a traditional dark roast. In other words, dark roasting does not “burn off” caffeine.

However, roasting for a longer time causes the bean to lose more moisture and expand. Dark roasted beans become less dense and lighter. If you measure coffee by volume (a teaspoon, a tablespoon), a measure of dark roasted coffee will have less beans — and therefore slightly less caffeine — than the same measure of a light roast. Dark roast coffee tastes more intense, has more pronounced roasted notes, but doesn't necessarily have more caffeine.

What really determines caffeine in the cup: the amount of coffee you use, the extraction method, the contact time with water, and the bean variety—not the roast color.

A latte has less caffeine than a single espresso.“

We often hear that children aren't given coffee, only coffee with milk—assuming that coffee with milk will have less caffeine than plain coffee.

This myth confuses concentration with total quantity. A simple coffee (espresso) is very concentrated in a very small amount of liquid—around 30 to 40 ml. A latte or gallon uses the exact same espresso as a base; what changes is that you have 150 to 200 ml of milk added.

Milk does not dissolve or absorb caffeine. It doesn't neutralize it. It doesn't dilute it in a way that your body absorbs less of it. What milk does is mellow the taste, making the coffee less intense on the palate, creamier, rounder. But the amount of caffeine you ingest is exactly the same.

If a latte or flat white is made with a double espresso and a single espresso has only onesingle, the drink with milk has double the caffeine — regardless of whether it has milk.

A short coffee has more caffeine than a full coffee.“

Here, the confusion is between concentration and total quantity—the same principle as the previous point, but applied to extraction.

A short coffeeRistretto, or simply extracted with less water) is more concentrated: more caffeine per milliliter. But because it has less total volume, the absolute amount of caffeine is less than or similar to that of a normal espresso. A full cup of coffee (longon the contrary, uses more water and has a longer extraction time — and since caffeine is progressively extracted over the course of the extraction, a long it ends up containing slightly more caffeine in total.

The feeling that a short coffee is “stronger” is real, but it refers to the concentration and intensity of flavor, not the amount of caffeine.

6. “Coffee must be served in a hot / scalded cup”

It makes sense, but there are important details. The idea behind it is reasonable: a cold cup will quickly lower the temperature of the coffee, and coffee that's too cold can lose some of its aromatic expression.

But there's a limit. A cup that has been on top of a high-temperature espresso machine can be at 70-80°C, which is too hot for coffee and for the mouth. Espresso is ideally served between 65°C and 70°C. A cup that is too hot can keep the coffee at that high temperature for too long, slightly burn the liquid on contact, or simply make it impossible to drink without burning your tongue.

Specialty coffee, in particular, is often served at slightly lower temperatures than usual – precisely because the aromatic profile is revealed better when the coffee cools down a bit.

It is noteworthy that, according to the Zurich Coffee Institute and as demonstrated in the 2016 World Championships by world champion Berg Wu and three-time Australian champion Hugh Kelly, extraction with chilled portafilters or under a chilled metal sphere helps to preserve the aromatic components of coffee and to enhance the sweetness of the coffee in particular.

7. “The cups should be placed upside down or covered with a cloth.”

It's a classic sight in any coffee shop: upside-down cups on top of the espresso machine, warming up.

The problem has two parts. First: when you turn a cup upside down on a surface, the opening is in direct contact with that surface—be it the machine's tray, a cloth, or a drying rack. The inside of the cup is exposed to residues and bacteria just as much as if it were mouth-up, with no hygienic advantage.

Second, and more importantly: the cup placed upside down on top of the machine concentrates heat inside it. Instead of heating the walls evenly—which is what we want, so they don't steal temperature from the coffee—the heat gets trapped within a closed space and the cup becomes excessively hot. When the espresso is served, the coffee enters a superheated chamber, which can compromise the ideal serving temperature and even affect the flavor, in addition to potentially burning your mouth because the area in contact with your lips is the same area that was in contact with the hot metal on top of the machine.

8. “Coffee without foam/crema is bad.”

Crema—that golden, foamy layer that appears on top of an espresso—has become a visual synonym for quality. And it's understandable: it's beautiful, it indicates the coffee is still fresh, and it's part of the espresso's aesthetic.

But the crema itself is not a reliable indicator of quality. There are two cases that clearly prove this:

First: coffees with more crema are often those with more robusta in the blend. Robusta produces more foam than arabica — but it is also, in general, the lower quality variety, with more bitter and less complex flavors. A thick crema can actually indicate a lower quality blend.

Second, the best specialty coffees, especially light roasts, often produce less crema – not because they are worse, but because their chemical composition is different. The rules that apply to traditional Italian espresso do not necessarily apply to specialty coffee.

9. “Drip coffee, coffee maker, or bag coffee has less caffeine / is less strong”

Strong is a word we use for coffee, but it rarely accurately defines what we mean. Strong can mean intense in flavor, concentrated, full-bodied, or high in caffeine. And these four things don't always go together.

An espresso is much more concentrated than filter coffee—more caffeine per milliliter, a much more intense flavor. But a standard cup of filter coffee contains 200 to 240 ml of liquid, while an espresso has only 30 ml. In total, a cup of filter coffee often contains more caffeine than a single espresso—potentially reaching 100–140 mg compared to 40–70 mg for a single espresso.

To have the same amount of caffeine as a cup of filter coffee, you might need two or three espressos.

Filter coffee isn't “weak.” It's a different extraction method with a different water ratio, resulting in a different flavor profile.

10. “Should I store coffee in the refrigerator to preserve it better?”

The logic seems sound: cold preserves food, therefore the refrigerator should preserve coffee. In practice, it's the exact opposite—the refrigerator is one of the worst places you can store coffee.

The problem is humidity. Coffee beans are extremely porous and hygroscopic — they easily absorb moisture and surrounding odors. The refrigerator is naturally a humid environment, and the coffee placed inside immediately begins to absorb this moisture. The result is that the oils and aromatic compounds that give coffee its flavor and complexity begin to degrade. When you use that coffee, you are using partially “pre-extracted” beans with compromised aromas — and this is noticeable in the cup: coffee that lacks vibrancy, with notes that are not what it should have.

There's yet another factor: every time you open the refrigerator and take out the coffee, the beans go from a cold temperature to room temperature. That constant temperature fluctuation creates condensation inside the packaging, which exacerbates everything mentioned above. The refrigerator is also full of other odors—cheese, fruit, leftovers—and the coffee will absorb them.

And the freezer? Here is the answer nim. The freezer is used by professionals—including in world barista competitions—to preserve single-origin coffees for long periods. But there's one non-negotiable condition: the coffee must be in airtight packaging with as little air as possible, and it shouldn't be repeatedly taken out and put back in. Every time you open and close it, moist air enters, and ice crystals form on the surface of the beans. If you're going to use the coffee over weeks, the freezer does more harm than good.

The golden rule is simple: buy the coffee you'll drink in the next two to three weeks, store it in a cool, dry, dark place, in a sealed package or airtight container, away from the stove, direct light, and the refrigerator. The enemy of coffee is not the moderate heat of the kitchen; it's humidity, oxygen, and drastic temperature fluctuations.

A Final Note: Questioning is the First Step

Understanding coffee isn't about memorizing technical facts, it's about developing the curiosity to question what we've been told and paying attention to what's in the cup. Many of these myths exist because they made sense for a long time, or because they were convenient for those who sold coffee of questionable quality.

Good coffee doesn't need myths to defend itself. It speaks for itself.