If you can find it, Tanzanian Peaberry is really good. Has a lot of fruit tones if it isn't roasted too dark.
Back when I used to own a coffeeshop, we had what were called "cuppings", where people would come in and sample different coffees and learn about different beans and roasts. I'll see if I still have a copy of a questionnaire that can help determine what your taste preference would be. The 2 questions I can remember off-hand are "how do you prefer your steak to be cooked", and "do you prefer fruits like apricots, peaches and plums or nuts like peanuts and cashews"? It was pretty funny how we could determine what someone's favorite coffee would be based off of the questions.
Starbucks is shit. They blend their Arabica beans with robusta beans so they can roast it dark enough to stay on a warehouse shelf for weeks without losing the caffeine. Its basically all French roasted crap ground so fine that there's no origin flavor left but people think its good because its trendy. The founder of the company that eventually left started Peets Coffee and they make a really good bean even for a home brewer. Intelligentsia out of Chicago and B&W out of Mimneapolis are pretty much the gold standard for coffee.
ing on the plants, lol. Soil acidity, rainfall amounts, elevation where they come from, etc. Its not exactly what I would call a science but its dang near one. 
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