Via Alt.Coffee…
Now, I would hope that we at Ozgreens all know the answer to the question in the title. But this is still an interesting piece of writing from a non-coffee geek source.
It is about the market in America, and a lot of the brands we will know by name only.
Personally, on the rare occasions I ever run out of ‘proper’ coffee, I just drink tea rather than buy supermarket coffee!
Feel free to to comment below.
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The Following is from America’s Test Kitchen —-
Is Supermarket Coffee Worth Drinking?
We find only one we can (barely) recommend.
It wasn’t too long ago that if you wanted a cup of coffee, you had two choices: brew it yourself at home with a supermarket brand, or buy a watery, tasteless cup at your local convenience store or diner. Today, specialty coffees abound, with boutique shops in every town selling ‘’premium’’ beans so that quality coffee can be had at home. But what about those old stalwarts, the supermarket brands of coffee? Are they dinosaurs of an era past or are any of them worth drinking? At just one-quarter the price of premium beans and widely available, there’s no beating the cost or the convenience.
After sampling eight brands of ground coffee from the supermarket (including Starbucks, a supposedly premium brand that is now available in supermarkets already ground), we can safely say no. The best anyone could say about our ‘’winner’’ was that it was the ‘’least offensive’’ of the lot.
We brewed the coffees to same strength (1.6 grams of coffee per ounce of water, the ratio recommended by the Specialty Coffee Association) and in the same model of electric drip coffee maker. The coffees were tasted plain—no sugar, no milk.
Only one coffee is recommended, and even that one received mostly negative comments from tasters, though a few found it palatable. The problem most of the tasters had with the coffees was the lack of depth; the overriding flavor in almost all of the samples was bitterness, with no floral, fruity, or chocolatey flavors that you would find in a good coffee. Chock Full o’ Nuts (which also performed well in our tasting of French roast coffees in the May/June 2002 issue) was less the most liked of the brands than the least hated of them. As for the rest of the pack—well, let’s just say that no one even wanted to save the leftovers for iced coffee.
So is this just a case of money buying quality? Will the $12/pound
coffee you buy at the coffee shop always be better than the coffee you buy in the supermarket? Well, yes and no. Starbucks, a premium brand that is sold in most major supermarkets (as well as in dedicated coffee shops), placed second-to-last in our tasting, yet it costs more than three times as much as our top finisher, Chock Full o’ Nuts. Our reasons for not liking Starbucks, however, are different than those for not liking the other supermarket brands.
When we held our French roast coffee tasting (‘’The Truth About French Roast Coffee,’’ May/June 2002), we found that Starbucks tends to over-roast their beans, which can lead to overtly bitter tones in the coffee, something our tasters didn’t like.
There are two likely reasons we didn’t like the supermarket brands, both having to do with the beans. The beans used by supermarket brands are of a lower quality than those used at coffee shops. The second factor is the grind; when you buy coffee at a coffee shop the beans are ground when you purchase them (or shortly before). With supermarket coffee, the beans are ground far in advance of when you buy them.
Money, then, is not necessarily the best judge of coffee; rather, you should go for freshness first and always buy high quality beans.
In order of preference:
RECOMMENDED
CHOCK FULL O’ NUTS $2.69/13 OZ.
‘’Tastes like diner coffee,’’ ‘’least offensive.’’
NOT RECOMMENDED
MELITTA TRADITIONAL PREMIUM ROAST $3.99/11.5 OZ.
‘’Very sour,’’ ‘’no aroma.’’
FOLGERS CLASSIC ROAST $2.79/13 OZ.
‘’Bursting with charcoal flavors, and nothing else.’’
HILLS BROS. $2.79/13 OZ.
‘’Tastes like hot water—but at least the bitterness is in check.’’
TASTER’S CHOICE (INSTANT) $5.49/4 OZ.
‘’Sour,’’ ‘’greasy,’’ ‘’tastes like nothing.’’
MAXWELL HOUSE ORIGINAL $2.79/13 OZ.
‘’No depth,’’ ‘’highly bitter.’’
STARBUCKS HOUSE BLEND $8.39/12 OZ.
‘’Burnt plastic flavor,’’ ‘’smells like a forest fire.’’
CHASE & SANBORN SPECIAL ROAST $2.49/11.5 OZ.
‘’Tastes like something—dirt, maybe?’’