Best Grocery Store Coffee Bean Brands

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As we start to get toward the end of the year, I thought it would be a good idea to do a brief roundup of the best coffee beans I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on in 2019. Some of the coffee beans on the list may not be to your liking, and that’s fine. Coffee is subjective. We each have our tastes and preferences.

The idea behind this post was to open the door to some new types of coffee which you might not have tried before and coffee that is easily accessible to everyone. It’s a BIG coffee world out there. Go on, live a little, and try something new.

Best Tasting Coffee Beans – Some Great Options From The Supermarkets Shelves!

Below are some of the best coffee beans that I can’t get enough of this year; these are just regular beans found on most supermarket shelves and ideal for brewing daily. They are priced pretty reasonably and aren’t the most expensive coffee beans in the world!

Currently, I’m on a fresh bag of Peet’s – my second bag, I may add. I’ve tried a lot more varieties of coffee throughout the year, but the below picks are the coffee beans that are worth mentioning, and I recommend you give them a try.

Peet’s Whole Bean Coffee Ethiopia Yirgacheffe

Peet’s Whole Bean Coffee Ethiopia Yirgacheffe

This is probably one of the creamiest and smoothest coffee I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. This whole bean coffee is a dark roast and originates from Ethiopia, in the Yirgacheffe region to be precise. Personally, I get a lot of citrus and floral notes with this coffee, with a slight hint of chocolate. If you want to taste a dark roast coffee from the premier growing region in Ethiopia, I recommend you give this one a try! You can find Peet’s Whole Bean Coffee Ethiopia Yirgacheffe at Amazon.

Notes: Showy-floral, citrus-bright

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Koffee Kult Dark Roast Arabica Coffee

Koffee Kult Dark Roast Arabica Coffee

If you’re looking for a good budget coffee, you should take a look at Koffee Kult. As soon as I opened the bag, I had an instant feeling that I would love this coffee. The beans are oily and fresh, and the aroma is awesome. With this bag, I get a heavy body with a lot of smooth cinnamon notes coupled with a surprisingly bright finish. If you haven’t tried any of Koffee Kult’s whole coffee beans from their large selection before, this is a great place to start. You can find Koffee Kult Dark Roast Arabica Coffee at Amazon.

Notes: Heavy body, smooth, cinnamon, bright with a long finish

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Ethiopian Sidamo Guji Natural Coffee

Ethiopian Sidamo Guji Natural Coffee

This is another Ethiopian coffee that’s found its way onto my best coffee beans list. Apparently, these beans are roasted immediately before packaging – I believe them! As soon as you open the bag, you’re hit with a lovely heavy coffee aroma. The Ethiopian Sidamo beans have been grown in the Kaffa region of the Sidamo province of Ethiopia. On tasting, I get earthy, cherry, sweet notes with a wine-like aroma. I think the wine aroma is caused by the sun-drying process when the beans are being prepared. You can find Ethiopian Sidamo Guji Natural Coffee at Amazon.

Notes: Earthy with notes of cherry and strawberry

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Cafe Don Pablo Gourmet Organic Coffee

Cafe Don Pablo Gourmet Organic Coffee

If you’re looking for high-quality organic coffee that won’t break the bank, I recommend that you take a look at Cafe Don Pablo Gourmet Coffee. This offering is Honduran coffee from the Marcala region, and it is 100% organic. No chemicals have been used in the growing and preparation process. Notes include a deep rich chocolaty flavor and a clean finish with hints of cocoa, honey, and caramel. You can find Cafe Don Pablo Gourmet Organic Coffee on Amazon.

Notes: Smooth milk chocolate with notes of honey, caramel, and cocoa

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Magnum Coffee Jamaican Blue Mountain Blend

Magnum Coffee Jamaican Blue Mountain Blend

This blue mountain coffee is the last on my list. The Magnum Coffee is unbelievably smooth, mellow with no sharp edges, and has a great aroma – the taste is out of this world! This particular Jamaica Blue Mountain Blend is a medium roast. I had this sent to me as a gift, and to be honest, I wouldn’t have tried it otherwise. I’m glad I did! You can find Magnum Coffee Jamaican Blue Mountain Blend at Amazon.

Notes: Floral notes and sweet herbal and nutty overtones

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Copper Moon Hazelnut Whole Bean Medium Roast Coffee

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If you want to spice up your morning by adding a bit of flavor to your cuppa Joe, then you need to take a look at this full-flavored offering from Copper Moon.

Enjoy coffee as flavorful as they serve at your local cafe, but in the comfort of your own home and at a fraction of the cost.

Copper Moon whole beans are ethically sourced and organic, and if you’re a fan of single-origin or you don’t mind a blended mix, you enjoy full-bodied dark or medium roasts Copper Moon has something tailored just for you.

Each batch of coffee is expertly roasted in small batches, which allows each bean the time and attention it deserves.

Notes: Rich in flavor with a sweet, nutty finish

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Where to Buy Coffee Beans?

So you’ve spent some time browsing around Bean Ground, and you’ve picked out a new awesome coffee maker, and you’re ready to start on your home barista coffee brewing journey. Which is going to give you a whole new coffee-drinking experience far better than the typical supermarket instant coffee you’ve been slurping on previously.

Just one small problem, where to buy coffee beans? Where’s the best place, and should I order coffee online or buy it from my local supermarket?

Decisions, decisions. Buying your coffee beans from the wrong place could leave a bitter taste in your mouth and might just send you running back to that instant coffee you’d been brewing with before!

Deciding on the places to buy your coffee beans can be a daunting task for a beginner transitioning away from instant. There are so many different variables to take into consideration that it’s not just as simple as picking up a bag from your local supermarket and calling it a day (however, this is an option when you know what to look for!).

In this article, I’m going to hold your hand and help you to decipher those geeky coffee labels and tell you what to look for when buying whole-bean coffee. Plus, I’ll throw in a few pointers about where you can go to find the best coffee. So if you haven’t already, grab a large cup of your favorite coffee, sit back and let’s crack on.

Always Buy Whole Bean

I can’t stress this enough if you’re going to invest a small fortune in a new coffee maker, don’t scrimp when it comes to buying the coffee to go in it. Never (…. never, NEVER) buy pre-ground coffee unless you have no other choice and the coffee gremlins have taken all of your tools to grind your coffee beans at home.

Buying whole coffee beans ensures that you’re going to get the best-tasting and freshest coffee you can get your hands on (unless you plan on roasting your own). The whole beans will still have their goodness trapped inside and have yet to be affected by oxidation (coffee beans and air are not a good combination).

Just make sure you invest in a good coffee grinder so that you get the most out of each bean with the perfect grind.

Various Coffee Blends

You’ve probably seen different supermarket coffee being labeled as “blended coffee” with enticing names such as “Mocha Java,” etc. Mocha just refers to the coffee sourced from Ethiopia and Yemen, and Java refers to Indonesian coffee beans.

Don’t get me wrong, coffee blends aren’t a bad thing, and almost all coffee from big-name brands has been blended in some way and form.

For example, sometimes coffee roasters will combine various coffee beans to create consistent, flavorful quality for their consumers. On the other hand, cheaper coffee bean varieties such as the Robusta are often blended with Arabica to create an adequate cup of coffee that costs less.

Think back to your supermarket-bought instant coffee. This is typically a blend of the two with a higher percentage of Robusta beans because they are cheaper to source.

Not all coffee blends are simplistic, and various great tasting ratios of different coffee beans are painstakingly discovered and combined by teams of coffee geeks’ feverishly working away in secret underground laboratories trying to find the next best blend (well, not quite, but you get my point).

Flavored Coffee Beans

Flavored coffees are the coffee geeks’ number one pet peeve, and to be honest, this type of coffee is best left for consumption by spotty teenage Starbucks drinkers (no offense!). I’m sure you’ve all come across flavored coffee beans in your local supermarket.

Personally, I’m not a fan, and I would recommend that you stay clear from flavored coffee when buying your coffee beans – here’s why.

Flavored coffee beans tend to be the “bottom of the barrel” coffee beans, you know those beans that no one wants either because they’re older, bitter, or simply not good enough for anything else.

Flavor in the form of concentrated syrups is mainly added to those coffee beans to mask mediocrity, but it rarely does a good job (and it might even be harmful?). You’ll probably never find flavored coffee in any well-respected high street coffee house, not that I’m aware of anyway?

Different Coffee Roast Types

Different Roast Type

When buying coffee beans, you can quickly become overwhelmed with all of the different roast types, and to be honest, this topic deserves its very own article.

However, to keep things simple and not to over-complicate things, dark roasts tend to produce a slightly sweeter coffee, as the natural sugars in the beans will caramelize. Also, dark coffee beans lose some of their caffeine and acid during the longer roasting process.

On the other hand, lighter roasts tend to be more bitter, slightly more acidic, and less sweet. If espresso is your preferred brew, darkish roasts are going to be the better choice because these beans typically brew an espresso that’s sweet and less bitter.

Here are some typical names you’ll notice on bags of coffee:

  • Dark/City Medium Roast: as I mentioned above, darker roasts tend to be less bitter and acidic and will have slightly less caffeine. In most instances, this type is often sweeter than a medium roast.
  • Medium/House/American Roast: this tends to be the “cheap stuff” (Folgers, Nescafe, Yuban, etc.) and is often a medium roast that almost all of the lower-end coffee shops in America will use in their auto-drip coffee machines.
  • Light/Cinnamon Roast: this roast tends to be very lightly roasted, has high amounts of caffeine, and is much more acidic and bitter. Nope, it doesn’t even taste Cinnamon (contrary to the name), but the color is similar, and I guess this is how it picked up the Cinnamon name tag. You’ll probably struggle to get your hands on this kind of coffee.
  • City Roast/French: this type of roast is darker than your classic dark roast, and the beans (in my opinion) are burnt and overly oily. Some coffee drinkers love this type of roast, but NOT me.
  • Very Dark Roast/Espresso/Italian/Full City: want to go even darker? When buying coffee beans, this is probably going to be labeled as espresso roast and is suitable for, yup, you guessed it, espressos.

Roast Date and Use by Date, Confused?

Like all foods you buy that have a use-by date, so does coffee. But not only that, but when you buy coffee beans, you’ll also notice that there is a roast date on some of the bags of coffee. If you find a bag of whole bean coffee that has a roast date on it, that is a good thing, and if the bag you have in your hand doesn’t, I recommend putting it back on the shelf and finding one that does.

Just like the use-by date, which tells you when to consume the beans for the best drinking experience, the roast date lets you know when the beans were roasted.

So, as a rule of thumb, always try and buy coffee beans that have a recent roast date, the more recent, obviously, the fresher the beans will be – the fresher, the better!

If you’re still confused, take a look at the article “Is The Coffee Roast Date Important?” which covers this topic in more depth.

Bag showing coffee roast date

Best Place to Buy Coffee Beans

In your search to buy coffee beans, you’ll probably venture into dusty stores hidden at the back of dark alleyways and led into secret doors at the back of your local supermarket, but this is a must if you actually want to buy better coffee beans that are the freshest you can get your hands on!

Where Do You Go?

It would be easy if there was a magic store in your town or city where you could go and simply buy the best coffee beans, but in reality, it’s not that simple (if you have a magic coffee bean store in your city that you’ve found, do tell).

Sure, some of the well-known supermarkets will stock whole coffee beans, but in all honesty, this should still be the last place to look.

They tend to be sat on the shelves for an extended period of time, especially if the brand of coffee is not well-known by the average Joe who simply reaches for his tub of Folgers on each shopping trip.

Your best bet when buying coffee beans is to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon online searching for any local coffee roasters in your area or, at the very least, finding privately owned coffee shops that will often stock local coffee beans and who are willing to share!

When buying coffee beans, try and purchase only the smallest bags they have available so you can make sure you use them while it is at their freshest.

Order Coffee Online

Your next best place to buy coffee beans is to order coffee online. Personally, I buy my coffee beans online a lot because, unfortunately, I don’t have too many good roasters locally, and love the fact that I get fresh coffee delivered to my front door every month; it really does take hard work out of buying great coffee.

There are many different coffee vendors online that act as the middle man with coffee roasters all over the country and beyond that bring fresh whole coffee beans directly to your front door without you lifting more than a few fingers to tap away at the keys of your keyboard.

Some of the big names are Bean Box, Volcanic Coffee, and Sudden Coffee. But if you want to do even less leg work, you can signup for an online coffee subscription service.

Should You Buy Coffee from Self-Serve Bins?

I don’t recommend buying coffee beans from those big self-serve bins you find in supermarkets and various other establishments. Why?

Well, for starters, you don’t really know how long that coffee has been sitting in the bins. Are they still fresh? When were they roasted? And how many hands, coughs, and sneezes have these coffee beans seen in their lifetime? (yuk!)

Plus, think about all the time those coffee beans have been left out in the open air, which by the way, is the number one killer of fresh beans; think “oxidation.”

To put it bluntly, it’s a total gamble on what quality of beans you’re going to get when you choose to buy coffee beans from these self-serve bins. It’s far better to pick up a bag that’s been sealed and has a roasted date on it, so at least you know what you’re buying is as fresh as it can be …. and clean!

Top Tasting Recommended Coffee

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