(Search seems to be broken, this has probably been asked before.)
In search of a better cup of coffee, I recently bought a coffee grinder. The local supermarket seems to only carry a couple of brands of beans, Eight O’Clock and Starbucks. I don’t like the former’s taste and I don’t like the latter’s dark roast. When you’re out of options, mail order seems like the only choice. As a bonus, I’ve also heard that you get much fresher coffee since they have no reason to keep roasted stock around.
My coffee pot broke recently and rather than make a 90 mile trek to town and back, I decided to try Gevalia. It arrived fairly quickly along with the coffee samples. I tried 'em both and didn’t care for either one, but what really got me was the price of continuing the program. The cheapest stuff was 12 bucks a pound. I drink too much to be able to fork out that kind of dough.
I’ve ordered from these folks for years. They have a wide variety of coffee, whole beans or ground to your specs. If you go through a lot of coffee like I do, tell them you want a wholesale account. I order 10 lbs. at a time and it’s around six dollars a pound.
My absolute favorite is Batdorf & Bronson. They’re coffee roasters in Olympia, WA, which is already a good sign: them Washingtonians don’t stand for bad coffee. The folks in the tiny little cafe (at least, it was tiny when I went to college there in the nineties) are extremely knowledgeable about their different roasts, and you can tour their roastery. It’s a wonderful place, with coffees that will make your head swim with their rich flavors. And their catalog is a hoot, too.
You need a local roaster or a close mail order shop to keep shipping costs down.
Are you making espresso, press pot, drip, or what?
I doubt you can get fresh Gevalia, Starbucks, or anything at your supermarket. I’ll scope out your geographic area and post back later with some recommendations.
I like to buy organic, Fair Trade (“free range,” as my husband calls it) coffees, and have been getting mine from Cafe Campesino for a while now. It’s not high-end gourmet coffee, but it’s quite good, and their service is speedy.
Drip pot for now. No roasting, grinding it is already almost too much effort. It’s just that it’s enough effort that I might as well grind good coffee.
I don’t drink coffee, but my wife does and she swears by Peet’s. Being a Bay Area native, she’s probably prejudiced.
Anyway, she finds their shipping costs to be eminently reasonable, and even though we live on the east coast it generally arrives in a pretty timely fashion.
