Coffee question

A TV commercial for Eight o'Clock ground coffee prompted me to ask this question: What brand of ordinary coffee (for everyday drinking) do you recommend?

Merely check box, if applicable: [ ] I drink only gourmet coffees.

I drink coffee from the Napa Roasting Company every day. Call it gourmet if you like- it costs no more than Starblechs.

If, by "gourmet", you mean coffee that's not one of the major national brands that comes in a can then I would check the box.

I go with locally roasted coffee, too. Usually Jump Start, from Coffee Works. Sometimes something from Old Soul Coffee. If I have to go with something from the supermarket, it's usually Peet's.

Mike

[Robin Garr]

A TV commercial for Eight o'Clock ground coffee prompted me to ask this question: What brand of ordinary coffee (for everyday drinking) do you recommend?

Merely check box, if applicable: [ ] I drink only gourmet coffees.

Piling on here, Larry ... what's "gourmet" coffee? My city and my neighborhood are awash with locally owned and operated coffee houses. I usually buy from Heine Bros. Coffee but occasionally pick up beans from Sunergos or Lotsa Pasta. It's more than Folger's, but it's certainly no more than Charbucks.

The key isn't really "gourmet." It's that supermarket varieties are generally made from robusta beans, while the G-word varieties are almost invariably made from arabica beans. There is a significant difference, as much of a difference as between vinifera and labrusca grapes in the world of wine. Coffee made from robusta beans has a distinct "cereal" taste that's not easy to enjoy once you've gotten out of the habit.

I don't like to think of what I drink as gourmet, since I drink it everyday. I like Peet's a lot and I'm on a recurring order program where they send me two pounds every six weeks - one each of Sumatra and Sierra Dorada. I like the fact that it's roasted the day it's shipped, so I'm not getting stuff that's been on the shelf for months. Since that's usually not enough to last me, I also get freshly roasted beans at a local roaster (check them out - http://www.armeno.com) that gets in some really interesting coffees. Starbucks - not a chance - I just do no like the burnt taste in every coffee I've tried there.

What I'm talking about is the ordinary brands found at the supermarket and probably used as the coffee of choice at work. At SWW's free twice-monthly meetings that draw over a hundred people each, we generally use Kirkland brand coffee (not bad) and sometimes Folger's, if it's on sale. There's no way we're filling a 100-cup coffee maker with expensive stuff.

So my question really is if you had to pinch your nose and choke down office-quality coffee, what do you think is the best commercial brand? Folgers, Chock Full o'Nuts, Eight o'Clock, etc.?

What I'm talking about is the ordinary brands found at the supermarket and probably used as the coffee of choice at work. At SWW's free twice-monthly meetings that draw over a hundred people each, we generally use Kirkland brand coffee (not bad) and sometimes Folger's, if it's on sale. There's no way we're filling a 100-cup coffee maker with expensive stuff.

So my question really is if you had to pinch your nose and choke down office-quality coffee, what do you think is the best commercial brand? Folgers, Chock Full o'Nuts, Eight o'Clock, etc.?

I used to like Chock Full o'Nuts, but that was a long time ago.

Where I work, the person in charge of making coffee for large meetings doesn't drink coffee. She buys Folger's and puts it into a giant percolator. What comes out is godawful.


Mike

I'm in charge of the coffee club at work ($2/week or $.25/cup) and I buy Folgers at Sam's Club. It works and is better than the Sam's Club brand or Maxwell House. I think Chase & Sanborn is the worst. If I buy a brand name for home it is Chock Full o'Nuts, but I prefer grinding French roast whole beans. My worst coffee experince was going to someone's house, being offered a cup of coffee and was given very weak instant decaf.

Our office coffee is Peet's. And it's pretty good.

Cafe La Semeuse, Espresso, a Swiss company. Available at Market Basket here.

We've tried many -- Zabar's store blend is our second choice.

I like Peet's, and I like some of Aroma's products (local to Santa Fe).

The default at work is some foodservice something from US Foods or Sysco. Ugh.

That's why I have a grinder and small (4-cup) coffeemaker in my office.

[Robin Garr]

Our office coffee is Peet's. And it's pretty good.

Our office coffee is Illy espresso and/or something fresh-roasted from Heine Bros. Maybe Yemen Mocha. Of course, our office is just Mary and me ...

So my question really is if you had to pinch your nose and choke down office-quality coffee, what do you think is the best commercial brand? Folgers, Chock Full o'Nuts, Eight o'Clock, etc.?

For the everyday, even-drink-it-old-and-cold coffee I buy Kirkland (Costco) decaf in the Brobdingnagian size container. Mr. Coffee is my brewing weapon of choice. It is warm and brown and a relative value at about $8.00 for three pounds. I'm sure the leaded version tastes even better than the unleaded I drink.

For more elevated coffee pleasures I default to Peet's coffee and my French coffee press. I get to visit Peet's headquarters and roasting facility in Emeryville, CA (soon to move to Alameda, CA) every so often. What they say is true. They roast and ship on the same day and go to great lengths to preserve freshness. They also roast their beans such that they are deep and dark but not charred.

If I didn't have Peet's in the neighborhood, I would probably find a microroaster who roasted to my tastes and then simply buy freshly roasted whole beans for consumption in about a week.

Well, my office is, well, me. And I drink dark roast arabica beans daily. Usually done in my old Capresso 451 grind & brew with a burr grinder.

By the way...I think this study, while a few years old, is particularly apt here:


Researchers have confirmed drinking coffee can protect against one of the worst effects of alcohol. Alcoholic liver cirrhosis progressively scars the organ, and is known to be affected by a range of factors including smoking, diet, infection and genetics - as well as alcohol.

The team at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland took a survey of more than 125,000 cirrhosis-free patients between 1978 and 1985. Participants were quizzed about their alcohol, coffee and tea consumption and their progress monitored. By 2001, 330 had been diagnosed with the liver disease, of which 199 were alcohol-caused.
For every cup of coffee participants drank each day, the researchers calculate they were 22 per cent less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis long term, strengthening earlier findings by the team and an other groups. More info here.

Reporting in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine the authors write: "The data do suggest that coffee intake may partly explain the variability of cirrhosis risk in alcohol consumers." The relationship is buttressed by findings from blood samples, which showed the amount of damage-indicating enzymes released by the liver is less if the patient is a coffee drinker.

Tea has no such protective powers, they found, meaning caffeine may not be responsible for the effect. The team explain: "Previous reports are disparate with respect to whether the apparently protective coffee ingredient is caffeine; in our opinion this issue is quite unresolved."

I work from home a lot so my office coffee is Starbucks, whatever variety I feel like drinking.

While I understand why many people wouldn't like Starbucks coffee as made in the stores, I get very good coffee at home from the beans I buy there. I've tried other places in Phoenix with mixed results - some places just not good, others good one time, bad the next. In 10+ years of drinking Starbucks coffee I've only had 1 bag of beans that was bad (it was old) and it was cheerfully replaced.

We get our coffee from these folks: http://www.piscataquacoffee.com/index.cfm

At less than $10 per pound, would not call it "gourmet." However it is very nice for everyday drinking. Order six pounds and get free shipping.

At home, we drink a locally roasted coffee - SLO Roasted, out of San Luis Obispo.
In the unlikely and rare event that I would go to the office, let alone drink coffee there, it would be Peet's, as we are an authorized distributor of their product, which I like quite a bit.

If I had to choose between Eight o Clock, Folger's etc etc - I would go for the water pitcher. Really.

We drink Starbucks. We buy whole beans at the grocery store. All dark roast beans, I grind it every morning. We love the stuff.

I've never understood what the problem is with Starbucks? Seems like the people these days just hate...for some reason...sucessful business ventures.

Be it Starbucks or Microsoft (both of which are great American success stories) ...everyone seems to hate a winner.

Richard

We drink Starbucks. We buy whole beans at the grocery store. All dark roast beans, I grind it every morning. We love the stuff.

I've never understood what the problem is with Starbucks? Seems like the people these days just hate...for some reason...sucessful business ventures.

Be it Starbucks or Microsoft (both of which are great American success stories) ...everyone seems to hate a winner.

Richard

Can't speak for anyone else here, but I have no problem with anyone succeeding. I do, however, have a problem with anyone succeding by selling crap. The coffee at Starbuck's is AWFUL! They sell milk and sugar!(I'll leave discussion of Microsoft to the rest of you.)

Be it Starbucks or Microsoft (both of which are great American success stories) ...everyone seems to hate a winner.

I was just about to post something similar. I generally ignore comments about both of those companies from people who mangle their names. Those comments almost never seem to be rational to me. Of course you can get me going on the coffee-drink culture that seems to have originated with Starbucks - $3+ for some godawful concocted milk and sugar drink with a touch of espresso? Yecch! I've never had a problem with the quality of Starbucks coffee itself though. I've never gotten a particularly burnt sort of note from it, and in fact, the impression I get is that Starbucks coffee is roasted lighter now than it was in the good old days.

My everyday coffee of choice is from a local microroaster, Pegasus Coffee, on Bainbridge Island. I generally use Kenya, and one of the Pacific blends for decaf. Besides the quality of the coffee, I choose Pegasus because of the price. When I don't have time to get downtown to get my coffee resupplied, I fill in with Starbucks, and everything is fine at home.

Dave

A panel taste tested 42 different coffees. Their top two rated ground coffees were:

Berkley & Jensen 100% Colombian Batch Roasted (BJ's)
Kirkland Signature 100% Colombian Supremo

It has been years since I purchased ground coffee -- I don't think you can top freshly ground beans.

A panel taste tested 42 different coffees. Their top two rated ground coffees were:

Berkley & Jensen 100% Colombian Batch Roasted (BJ's)
Kirkland Signature 100% Colombian Supremo

It has been years since I purchased ground coffee -- I don't think you can top freshly ground beans.

Been known to purchase the Kirkland French roast myself.

For us, it's Green Mountain Breakfast Blend for the weekday and Ionia Sicilian espresso for the weekends. Both done in a drip pot.

At the office, the coffee is undrinkable.