How to tell if coffee beans are burnt? I bought a bag of whole bean "Medium Dark" coffee from a café which recently started roasting its own beans. To my taste it is awful, however am unsure if the coffee is burnt or just not to my taste. I am considering returning the beans.

What ways are there for telling if coffee beans are burnt?
Char - smell and taste. Excessive oil coating the surface of the beans. The extracted coffee will have a flat taste. Hard to describe, but the taste will be predominately "charred" and nothing else.

Cracking a bean open may help, I don't think it should be black through and through, but I don't have any experience with that.

Can you actually return beans?