Another coffee question - why does bean cost more than ground?

IMO not to a massively significant extent. Coffee “beans” are the pits of berries that grow on bushes. These berries are picked, dried, depulped, washed, dried again, the pit is shucked of its outer husk, then dried some more before shipping to the roaster (I may have parts of the order off, I’m working from childhood memory, growing up in a coffee-producing area.)
Then it is that the “beans” are separated: some will be roasted to be factory-ground, some will be roasted to be shipped whole, the best batches will get specialy roasts. Folgers regular blend (not any “specialty” varietal) “beans” will arrive at the forward end of the roaster all in the same condition re: non-coffee matter in the batch, and it’s mostly stubborn bits of berry skin and pit husk that refused to be shed in the pitting/washing/drying, and general foreign matter you’ll pick up in agricultural processing. The roaster itself will burn off some more of the contaminants, but a further difference in "foreign matter"may result from the shipping of whole ‘beans’ as that gives any remaining residue a further chance to shake loose.

(Here in PR, the picking of the coffee berries is strictly by hand – no big automated machines that blindly rip off whole branches of the bush, a human being picks the berries.)

Something that IS very likely to happen is that when you get batches of over- or under- roasted/dried “beans”, or just an overall inferior batch, this gets thrown in the hopper of the grinding machine, lowering the quality of the blend. And, of course, ground coffee goes stale much faster – essential compounds will evaporate out, or be attacked by oxygen, much faster in grounds than in a whole seed. That’s partly why if you find yourself with too much preground coffee it’s advisable to freeze it.

Oh good. I was wrong, but I learn something along the way.

As I read this, it looks like only somewhere between 5 - 10 % of stuff in the tins can be non-bean or bad bean. That’s about 3 times less than what I was thinking.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/fqa/aa20213b.htm
Max “defects” seems to be 10% by weight.

FWIW: the coffee pickers make in a day about what we pay for a cup of Large coffee.

( per the above forementioned linked book.)
Just thought I’d share the guilt I have over every cup of non-fair trade coffee.

I disagree with this one … I’ve grown coffee, picked coffee, worked in coffee roasters and mills, and I don’t think you’d be able to disguise ground wood or plant parts as ground coffee … they just wouldn’t look the same at all; it would have to be powdered before you wouldn’t be able to tell.

'Course, that would make it INSTANT coffee … and THAT tastes like pieces and parts (of burnt leather, monkey poop and donkey hair) anyway …

:confused: You really expected as much as a quarter to a third of each can of Maxwell House to be chaff??