It is always easier to identify something extremely “bad” that something extremely “good”.
Let´s take one example in the wine world, where in general we have a longer way as conscious consumers than in the coffee world.
Imagine that we are serving a sour wine, maybe a wine that was opened a week ago, or that our white wine is at 20º, or maybe they serve us wine mixed with water. It would be clearly something where we can realize the bad quality and it could be under our acceptance bar.
However, in coffee we are more tolerant (at least in some countries). After many years receiving non good quality coffee we even maybe can look for some bad flavours (we were accustomed for that).
Luckily, we are slowly learning about coffee, and we don’t want “torrefacto” coffee, or if we receive a coffee at 95º (or with extra hot milk) we will know that it is like having a wine at 25º, or that if we are serving a coffee using beans ground some hours ago, it is not the same as freshly ground, or that it is not the same making coffee with water network filtered that non filtered, and so many other practices that affects the coffee quality.
Let’s observe these characteristics, ask specialists and we will slowly discover that there is a healthier and nicer way to drink coffee, where we can also reduce or avoid the sugar (because a good coffee can be sweet itself), and enjoy distinguishing in the same cup all the flavours (sweet, bitter, acid) and enjoy all of them.
There are good and bad coffees, and not always the price will be the differentiating factor, but the practices and procedures that we can see the barista has. Let’s remember that coffee and wine are biological products in which we apply processes, and in coffee (unlike the wine) the preparation ends in front of us, and that is part of the charm (and risk) that it has.