SQL: Filter your coffee on multiple conditions

Which is better for selecting, multiple queries with one condition for each or one query with multiple conditions using OR?

Let’s say you have a SQL table containing coffee products, the companies they come from, and whether the product is foreign (vs. domestic).

CREATE TABLE coffee_products (
product_id varchar(225),
company_name varchar(225),
is_foreign boolean,
);

To get all domestic products from Sightglass and Philz Coffee, and both domestic/international products from Souvenir, your first idea might be to add a boolean filter for each of the 3 company criteria like so (don’t forget parentheses!):

SELECT * FROM coffee_products cp
WHERE (cp.company_name = 'sightglass' AND is_foreign=FALSE)
OR (cp.company_name = 'philz' AND is_foreign=FALSE)
OR (cp.company_name = 'souvenir')

However, this is actually scanning the data thrice (one for each criterion)!

Creating a single boolean condition by adding outside parens is more efficient. Consolidating the queries cut my query runtime on a real dataset from 1.5 hours to 10 minutes.

SELECT * FROM coffee_products cp
WHERE ((cp.company_name = 'sightglass' AND is_foreign=FALSE)
    OR (cp.company_name = 'philz' AND is_foreign=FALSE)
    OR (cp.company_name = 'souvenir')
    )

Be careful with your coffee filters!

• Lexi