Building a Coffee API with The Product API: A Complete Guide

Introduction to Coffee

Coffee is one of the world's most beloved beverages, enjoyed by millions daily. From single-origin specialty beans to convenient ground coffee, finding the right coffee with the right characteristics is essential for coffee enthusiasts, cafes, and retailers. Whether you're building a coffee marketplace, creating a subscription service, or developing a cafe management system, having structured coffee product data is essential.

Imagine being able to search for coffee and instantly get detailed information about each product - from roast type and origin to package weight. This is exactly what a specialized Coffee Product API can provide.

What Makes a Coffee API Special?

A Coffee Product API goes beyond basic product listings. It understands the unique characteristics that matter to coffee buyers:

• Roast Type: Light, medium, or dark roast - each offering distinct flavor profiles
• Origin: The geographic region where the coffee beans were grown (e.g., Colombia, Ethiopia, Brazil)
• Weight: Package size information for accurate pricing and inventory management

With this structured data, you can build powerful features like filtering by roast type, discovering coffees by origin, or comparing products by package size.

Try It Out: Search for Coffee

Use the search bar below to search for coffee. Try queries like "coffee dark roast", "coffee Colombian medium roast", "coffee Ethiopian light roast", or "coffee 12 oz". The results will include detailed specifications automatically extracted from product information across the web.

How It Works: Technical Implementation

Now that you've seen the API in action, let's dive into how it's implemented. This specialized Coffee API is built on top of The Product API which is an AI-based product search API that works with any product and any type of query. It responds with structured JSON and supports custom structured responses, allowing you to build specialized APIs for any product category.

The Product API's powerful custom_data_schema feature allows you to define additional structured fields specific to your product category, enabling you to create category-specific APIs like this Coffee API. For more details on how the API works, see the full documentation.

Understanding APIs for Product Data

An API (Application Programming Interface) enables different software applications to communicate. For product data:

• Input: You send a search query (e.g., "coffee dark roast")
• Processing: The API searches across multiple sources and uses AI to extract relevant information
• Output: You receive structured product data in JSON format

The flexibility of a product API means you can customize it for specific categories by defining additional data fields through JSON Schema.

Creating a Coffee-Specific JSON Schema to pass as custom_data_schema of search request

Here's the JSON Schema we use for coffee products:

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "roast_type": {
      "type": "string",
      "enum": ["light", "medium", "dark"],
      "description": "Coffee roast type"
    },
    "origin": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Coffee origin or region (e.g., 'Colombia', 'Ethiopia', 'Brazil')"
    },
    "weight": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Package weight (e.g., '12 oz', '1 lb', '500g')"
    }
  },
  "required": ["roast_type"]
}
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Using the Category Prefix

When searching for coffee, we prefix the search query with "coffee" to help the AI understand the context and return more relevant results.

Example Search Queries:

• coffee dark roast
• coffee Colombian medium roast
• coffee Ethiopian light roast
• coffee 12 oz

The prefix "coffee" ensures the API understands you're looking specifically for coffee products and not other items.

Complete Example: Making a Request

Here's how to make a request to The Product API with a coffee-specific schema. For complete API reference including authentication, endpoints, and all parameters, see the documentation:

const response = await fetch('https://api.example.com/api?search=coffee%20dark%20roast&with_image=true', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY'
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    custom_data_schema: {
      type: "object",
      properties: {
        roast_type: {
          type: "string",
          enum: ["light", "medium", "dark"],
          description: "Coffee roast type"
        },
        origin: {
          type: "string",
          description: "Coffee origin or region"
        },
        weight: {
          type: "string",
          description: "Package weight"
        }
      },
      required: ["roast_type"]
    }
  })
});

const data = await response.json();
console.log(data.products);
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Expected Response

The API will return products with standard fields plus your custom custom_data field:

{
  "status": "success",
  "products": [
    {
      "name": "Dark Roast Colombian Coffee",
      "description": "Rich and bold dark roast coffee from Colombia...",
      "brand": "CoffeeBrand",
      "image": "https://example.com/image.jpg",
      "custom_data": {
        "roast_type": "dark",
        "origin": "Colombia",
        "weight": "12 oz"
      }
    }
  ]
}
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Conclusion

By combining the flexible Product API with a coffee-specific JSON Schema, you can create a powerful, specialized API for coffee products. The key is:

1. Define your schema based on what coffee data matters to your application
2. Use category prefixes in search queries for better context
3. Leverage the custom_data field to build rich, category-specific features

The same approach works for any product category - you just need to define the right schema for your needs!

Ready to get started? Create your own product API on The Product API and start building your own category-specific APIs today!

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Ready to build your own category-specific API? Check out our other API preset guides for beverages, groceries, and more!