Give Blue Bottle espresso a try if you haven’t. I swear they’re a whole other level.

I’ve been purchasing most of my beans at Whole Foods, they have a bunch of local roasters, you just have to do some searching to find ones with a good roast date. I pay ~15 USD for a 12oz bag but it goes from 12 up past 20.

Stumptown are great roasters. I love to experiment with local roasters. I travel quite a bit and I try to pick up a pound from a local roaster wherever I go. I used be pretty smug in thinking that the top tier roasters in San Francisco would beat a small town roaster every time. My opinion has changed, I’ve been super impressed by a lot of smaller roaster.

It seems like we are both aware that lots of beans not labeled as espresso are great for it. I tend to go for light to medium roasts for both pour overs and espresso. I also prefer malty/chocolatey profile beans over the citrusy ones. That is not a hard rule but light roasted citrusy beans can be overwhelming in espresso