Rather than hijacking this thread, I thought I would post this question separately. This has been bugging me ever since I got a coffee grinder for Christmas a couple years ago. If you compare the price of a “pound” (13 oz) of the same brand of coffee (Folgers, Cains, etc.) the whole bean package is usually about a buck higher than ground. It’s one of those situations where it seems like the reverse would be true – it costs more to grind it than to leave the beans whole. Are they taking advantage of us whole-bean snobs?
And on a similar note, why is the vacuum-packed “brick” of ground coffee more expensive than a can of the same size?
WAG: I am not a coffe retailer (IANACR?), but I would think that it may partly be due to the common knowledge that if the coffe is bought whole bean and ground as needed, it is better. So it may be a pure profit thing.
However, it may also have a lot to do with the fact that whole bean coffee needs to be treated more carefully during packing and shipping due so that the beans do not become damaged. Also, I would venture that the preground coffee is made from lower quality beans that may not be aesthetically up to par to be sold whole bean.
I dunno, I think maybe it’s because coffee starts losing its flavor when it is ground, thus whole bean would make a better cup of coffee–the implication of course is that you grind it immediately before brewing. I’ve not had much like brewing whole beans.
People who buy whole bean coffee are willing to pay more for it, because of the quality improvement. The underlying cost difference is nearly irrelevant.
Also, it costs (marginally?) more to ship whole beans than to ship ground coffee. The particles fit closer together than the whole beans do. If you’ve ever raked leaves and stuffed them bags, you’ll have observed the principle: if you use a leaf chopper, the chopped leaves take up about a quarter the space unchopped leaves would.
I am mildly a coffee snob. Not a coffee retailer. However, it is my understanding ( an understanding that is open for enlightenment) that much of the pre-ground coffee sold in tins contains pieces and parts of the coffee plant, not -just- beans.
Same as for mushrooms, I guess. You pay more for whole mushrooms than you would stems and pieces.
Gourmet whole-bean coffee is a better quality bean than Chock Full O’ Nuts ever was, even before it was ground. These guys have more to say about it, and they’ll even sell you dirt-cheap whole beans if you insist. (with matching dirt flavor)
Ecomony of scale? (bean coffee is a nitch item while grounds are mass produced)
IIRC coffee companies made the claim a while back that they have improved the way they roast and grind the beans, so what used to take 1 lb, now can be done with 13 oz.
Those guys up in post #8. Now, for a caveat — it is actaully hard for me to get coffee as bad as the kind many big roasters use. These coffees often come in polyethylene “super sacks” (they are not even worth putting in a burlap bag), and they are sometimes not even whole seeds, but broken bits called “triage coffee.” They often contain moldy beans, lots of dead “black beans”, and a lot of rocks and sticks. Large roasters use equipment called destoners and scalpers to remove foreign matter from ultra cheap coffee.
