Question: “Hey you said not to buy whole coffee beans from grocery stores but what if they sell starbucks whole coffee beans would that be ok? or should I go to starbucks and buy from them?” - Isaac Shrader

Answer:
This is an excellent question, and as Isaac will attest, it took me a little while to properly answer it.  In fact each time I tried, the scope of answering the question got more and more out of hand.  Like any of us, I used to buy all of my coffee pre-ground from the grocery store.  I’ll answer this question with another question: what makes coffee taste good?

Like anything perishable, coffee tastes best when it’s fresh.  Wherever you buy coffee, it’s at the end of a supply chain that started in a coffee growing country, and ends where you buy it.  The care shown at each stage throughout the supply chain will determine how fresh the coffee, and how good it will taste in your cup.

Before Fire Roasted Coffee Company started selling their coffee through the local grocery chain Loblaws, I would have never suggested that you buy coffee from any grocery store.  Better that you find a local roaster who is roasting small batches and very recently before you buy it – this is as fresh (and delicious) as it gets.  However, by making local supply arrangements, Fire Roasted was able to ensure freshness for customers and the continuation of its strong name and reputation.  They did it by their proximity and agreement with the grocery store.

I took a trip to my own local grocery store to see if whole bean coffee sold there provides any indication of how recently the coffee was roasted.  Starbucks coffee sold in either grocery stores or through their retail outlets does not indicate when exactly it was roasted.  That means you should be able to do better, either by buying from a local roaster or buying coffee from a grocery store where the same care has gone into freshness as Fire Roasted Coffee arranged with its wholesale customer.

This image is of a coffee mass-roasted locally in Portland, Oregon and distributed to grocery stores in the general area.  It’s considered fresh for the same reason that Fire Roasted could ensure the same with Loblaws.  I took this picture in January 2012 and the label indicates that it’s best sold nine months later.  The coffee is vacuum-sealed so I assume it doesn’t get any more stale that it was when sealed, provided you don’t open the packaging and let air in.  I’ve heard some criticism of vacuum-sealing affecting coffee freshness, and you won’t find local roasters sealing their fresh-roasted coffee in any way before it’s sold. 

I found this one even more interesting.  I’m a fan of Peets coffee, and here, they are clearly trying to ensure a quality standard to the coffee they sell in grocery stores.  They want to ensure that coffee is not sold any later than 90 days after it was roasted, but the same label shows it was roasted on September 19, 2011.  I also took this picture in January 2012, past the 90-day mark.  In other words, Peets has set a standard, but its grocery store partner isn’t monitoring or following it!

Isaac, a long-winded answer to your question.  Coffee flavor comes from coffee freshness.  Coffee starts to go stale as soon as it’s been roasted from it’s original green form.  Don’t buy coffee if you don’t know when it was roasted.  And, don’t buy coffee that wasn’t roasted recently.  I wish I could point you to a grocery store that handles coffee properly.  Coffee sold at a Starbucks outlet is a better option than the grocery store because it at least came direct from some centralized Starbucks roasting facility.  But you will find even this is no substitute for coffee purchased from your local roaster, or any other source that can show you that it was recently roasted.

My father is a modern day Indiana Jones.  He has the travel bug that I am happy to have inherited.  In November of last year, he spent a month traveling between Belize and Guatemala in Central America.  And lucky me, he brought me Guatemalan coffee from the source.

I’ve had many different great coffees, but Guatemalan coffee is one of my consistent favorites.  I had concerns about whether the coffee that my father bought would be up to standard.  Ironically, because of Guatemala’s economy, their best coffee is generally exported.  Imagine, you could have a better cup of Guatemalan coffee at Starbucks than you could in Guatemala.

I am about halfway through the two pounds of this coffee that he brought back, and it’s great.  There’s also a romantic quality to drinking it, since it comes from the source.  My father bought it from Cafe Toliman – don’t try to find information online, I already tried.  Toliman is one of three volcanoes between which Lake Atitlan formed.  Yes, a lake held together by three volcanoes – my father says it’s breathtaking.  The soil is volcanic ash, rich in organic matter, a perfect altitude, climate, and soil for growing coffee.

You don’t need to fly to Guatemala to enjoy their amazing coffee.  Peets sells a special blend from the Guatemalan province of Antigua, its Guatemala San Sebastian.  I have included this variety in every “coffee tour” I’ve bought from Peets – it’s an amazing coffee.  Click here and enter “Guatemala” in the search field to learn more.

Alternatively, your local roaster definitely carries a Guatemalan coffee, and is a great source for fresh coffee.

I have friends that just returned from Ecuador.  Like any good friends, they brought me back coffee fresh from the source.  I was excited to get it home and try it, as I’ve never tried coffee from Ecuador.  Coffee is very much like wine, in that it takes a sample of the world’s offering to fully appreciate every flavor and variety.

Coffees of Ecuador

Ecuador is one of the top 20 producers of coffee in the world.  Although the country itself is small, its varied ecology makes it possible to cultivate all of the varieties of coffee within its borders, including premium Arabica beans and less-expensive Robusta beans.

Coffee cultivation and export is a significant portion of the country’s economy.  While they presently export to the US as well as all over the world, it is not very prevalent in the US.  As a result, very little is written about its unique qualities, and to the best of my knowledge, this would be my first cup of coffee from Ecuador.

El Tostador

The packaging of my friends’ coffee is entirely in Spanish and I am definitely not smarter than a fifth grader yet in Spanish.  But, I know key words so I gave “reading” about the coffee my best shot.  Naturally, I could see that it was produced by El Tostador, Cafe Tostado y Molido, where my friends bought it in Ecuador.

The first thing I noticed is that the words Arabica or Robusta were not printed anywhere on the package.  My rule of thumb when I see this is that it is probably cheaper Robusta beans.  After all, you would promote that you are selling Arabica beans, so if nothing is said, I assume it’s Robusta.  However, I was able to identify from the packaging, the region where the coffee was grown…the province of Loja.  The variety of coffee grown in Loja is Arabica – great news. 

The frest-roasted coffee was ground to order for my friends who brought back a pound for themselves, and brought back a pound for me.  It was ground fine, so I’ve been preparing it by pourover moreso than by press pot, since you would generally use a coarse ground coffee in the press pot to avoid overextraction (sludge).

Read: Pour-Over Brewing Method
Read: Fresh Press Brewing Method

In the end, I couldn’t help but take some of the Spanish from the packaging to a translation website, which told me:
“From the quality coffee plantations of the highlands of the province of Loja, a tradition of flavor and natural fragrance is born.”

Challenges

Ecuador has a couple challenges in order to have its coffee included in the list of Specialty Coffee origins.  First, it hasn’t actively promoted itself as a source of fine coffee to the US market, and promotes itself in the European market mainly on price.  The climate of Ecuador is similar in characteristics to other countries who produce well-recognized coffee.  This leads to the second challenge, that the country’s harvesting and processing standards are not as tightly regulated by the state since other exports, such as bananas, have increased in importance.

I was happy for the opportunity to try a new coffee I hadn’t tried before.  The only way to truly appreciate the world of coffee is to try coffees from around the world.

Question: “How does McDonalds make such good coffee? All they would tell me is that its from special high altitude beans grown in Brazil. An employee even gave me a bag of it and I made it at home but it did not taste as good. I’m going to try something other than paper filters. Whats their secret?” – Ed F.

Answer: Thank you for the email.  It’s an interesting question, something similar was asked last year about the coffee chain Tim Horton’s and where their coffee comes from.

Read: Where Does Tim Horton’s Coffee Come From?

We can only go by what information the company chooses to share with us, and I’m actually surprised you were given some of their whole bean coffee to take home.

McDonald’s shares some information on their website.  Their Premium Roast Coffee is advertised as “a blend of Arabica beans grown in Brazil and the mountains of Colombia, Guatemala and Costa Rica,” brewed no more than 30 minutes before you buy it.  By comparison, Tim Horton’s limits it to 20 minutes.

As a sidenote, McDonald’s even tries to introduce their own Juan Valdez in “Pedro Gaviña”, who apparently has been roasting coffee for McDonald’s for the last 25 years.  If that’s true, then their brewing or stocking practices have improved incredibly because their coffee today does not taste like it did even 20 years ago.  You can read his story here.

I hope that helps, it’s as much information as is released publically.  I say if you enjoy it, keep enjoying it.  It’s priced right compared to a Starbucks coffee which I consider to be slightly more flavorful, but much more expensive.  Their coffee maker may be coming closer to optimal brewing temperature than your home machine.  And, I do recommend a mesh reusable filter as it allows more coffee solids into the cup although it seems to me I see McDonald’s employees dumping ground coffee into paper filters in their restaurants.

When I buy a cup of coffee, I still notice the little icon on the cup that reminds us that the coffee is hot.  It always reminds me of the crazy woman that we all laugh at, who sued McDonald’s because for some reason, she didn’t think their coffee that she spilled on herself was going to be hot.  It led to the little “hot” graphic on EVERYBODY’s coffee cups, and even a parody on Seinfeld where Kramer burns himself in a similar way.

I was forced to buy Starbucks coffee at an airport recently, and noticed the hot warning.  It made me realize that I’ve heard different versions of how that woman’s story ends, but most often that a judge overturned the original decision to award her any money because her case was frivilous.  I looked into it a little further, and I’m ashamed to say that there is much to this case that we don’t talk about because it’s not as interesting a story.

Ladies and gentlemen, here’s the truth about that case.  It may not change your mind, but you should know the facts before passing judgement on this “crazy woman”:

- She was the passenger in the vehicle, different than what I remembered.  I had an image in my head that she was driving while preparing the coffee for herself.  This is a side point, as a spill is a spill, and it was her accident to spill it on herself.

- The coffee served to her was between 180 and 190 degrees.  This was the standard temperature for McDonald’s coffee at the time.  A vascular surgeon that testified in court determined that she suffered third-degree burns on 6% of her body,  including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas.  She was hospitalized for eight days, and underwent skin grafting in that time.

- She was 79 at the time.  This wasn’t the image I remembered.  Also, a side point as McDonald’s is not going to vary the temperature of their coffee for the age of their customer.

- I remember hearing outrageous amounts that this woman wanted from the big corporation for burning herself.  She sought to settle her claim for $20,000, and McDonald’s refused.

- During trial, McDonald’s Quality Assurance Manager testified that a burn hazard exists with any food product served to a customer at 140 degrees or hotter, and that the temperature of the coffee by standard could not be reasonably consumed as it would burn the mouth and throat.  Of course, nobody is expected to guzzle a cup of coffee as soon as it’s handed to them, but other testimony in the case indicated that coffee served at 155 degrees would have allowed the plaintiff time to remove the clothing that absorbed the coffee and scalded her.  155 degrees is still hotter than the temperature at which some chains were serving their coffee at the time.

- McDonald’s asserted that customers are known to buy coffee with the intention of consuming it at home or at work so it would have time to cool down.  This was countered with McDonald’s own published research that their coffee was being consumed by customers while driving and before reaching their destination.

- A jury at first awarded her $200,000, then reduced it to $160,000, stating that she was 20% to blame for the incident.  The judge called McDonalds’ conduct reckless, callous and willful.  None of us know how it was finally settled, because it was settled out of court.

There you have it.  I’ll reserve my opinion, because everybody here in the Pacific Northwest buys drive-through Americanos from espresso stands, and those are so hot, that the ‘baristas’ ask if you would like an ice cube in it so that you can drink it within an hour of it being prepared.

Thank you to the Lectric Law Library for the facts.

One thing I really like about this website and blog is connecting with other coffee drinkers. Since I moved to Portland, OR a few months back, I’ve enjoyed some back and forth with a fellow coffee loving Portlander on Twitter.  He suggested I check out a certain cafe in Portland and today, I did just that.  I was in there just long enough to enjoy an excellent freshly-pressed coffee, eat the ginger cookie that the barista talked me into, and realize that I am just not a cafe guy.

If you look back onto coffee’s role in our civilization of North America, you’ll see that the cafe played a significant role.  Prior to the coffeehouse, the place for people to congregate to discuss the issues of the day and calls to action was the tavern.  The great thing about the tavern was that a little alcohol loosened the tongue and got some stimulating conversation going.  The downside was that after so much alcohol, the quality of conversation deteriorated.  The tavern was also a place of petty violence, so the intellectuals looked for somewhere different to meet.

They found it in the coffeehouse.  Coffee also started stimulated conversation but without the downside of intoxicating anybody.  Academics, writers, active citizens…they all found a forum in the coffeehouse where they could find common ground.  It’s a little-known fact (Normy) that Lloyd’s of London started as Lloyd’s Coffee House, developing into a banking and insurance company based on the clientele that was meeting for coffee.

But what I found today reminded me why I so enjoy sipping coffee at home, rather than sitting in a cafe.  There was no conversation.  Each other customer sat quietly with a laptop in front of them and buds in their ears.  I saw two ladies sitting at the back that I thought might be there as friends – and they may have been, but both were planted in front of their laptop without a word between them.  The barista that greeted me was friendly, which always prompts me to probably talk louder than I need to.  I was immediately self-conscious that besides the trance-like music that was playing, my conversation with the barista was the only other sound.  I didn’t bring my laptop with me, it’s pretty boring people-watching when everybody works silently, and there was nobody really walking outside except for the same two transients back and forth.  So I pulled out my Blackberry and passed the time until I finished my coffee and cookie.

I’d like to see the coffeehouse of old.  I’d like to see like-minded people meet in a cafe to energize themselves on caffeine, discuss the matters of the day, and agree on the calls to action.  The place I went today was little more than a hip library that allows food and beverages.  If the coffeehouse of old is no more, then it was a nice experiment but I’ll stick to brewing and drinking the same quality coffee in the comfort of my own home.

On a recent book signing tour stop in Madrid, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced that the company has earmarked US $2 billion to invest in an “aggressive and opportunistic way”.  The company had been investing in the Asian market rather than Latin America, and that they would now shift attention.

This headline really caught my eye.  Like or hate Schultz, he was largely responsible for drawing attention to better-quality coffee.  I myself am drinking better coffee now than I was before the rise of Starbucks. 

I don’t want to infer that local roasters are not capitalists – after all, they are entrepreneurs and living off of their business.  But, Schultz has that definite air of being a capitalist.  This, in stark contrast to Planet Bean’s Bill Barrett who certainly strives to succeed, but has no broad expansion plans besides being his community’s leading expert in what he does, for the benefit of the community.

Read: Profile on Planet Bean

The reason I found this news so interesting is because all but a handful of the best coffees we drink come from some of the poorest places in the world.  The coffee farmer at the source lives poorer than anybody else in the chain, including the consumer at the very end of it.  These farmers can’t afford not to sell all of their best coffee to an exporter, so they drink the worst of their own product.

While Starbucks’ expansion into Latin America is focused on the large economy of Brazil, I wonder what impact it will have on the general quality of coffee enjoyed in that part of the world.  It’s of little development if the coffee is too expensive for most people to enjoy.  Starbucks’ rise in the developed countries of the world has done little to address concerns of poverty in growing countries, unless sales of Fair Trade coffee have been motivated by the support of local roasters that has developed in response to Starbucks’ growth.  Perhaps the only good that can come of this is a better appreciation of their own product in these growing countries as more of their product stays home instead of being exported to richer markets.

I’d love to hear what an economist has to say about this.

I’ve been moving around a lot lately, and I’m a bear if I don’t have at least a semblance of my coffee bar.  By that, I at least need a working coffee maker, fresh coffee that is preferably whole bean, a grinder to grind it right before I brew, and a mug to pour it into.  Without these essentials, I have to buy coffee by the cup.  And while living as a transient, I needed to make important but very temporary decisions.

I don’t like to cheap out on my coffee purchases, since each one is reflected in the cup, but then I remembered my very own advice on value in a coffee maker.  The one coffee maker that MakeGoodCoffee.com reviewed that had perhaps the greatest value in that it was very inexpensive but broke into our Top Five Coffee Makers: the Black and Decker SmartBrew.

When we reviewed the world of Coffee Makers to come up with our top five recommendations, each of them were priced about the same, somewhere between $100-150.  The Black and Decker SmartBrew was an interesting black swan, one of the “cheaper” looking models that broke the top five with a price around $30-40.  While it didn’t come with the bells and whistles of the other machines, it still makes a very excellent coffee, and $30 for a brewer that can do that is pretty amazing.  What’s more, many of the bells and whistles associated with the top machines either don’t actually make better coffee or do so only marginally.

I can’t lie to you, coffee lovers…I went to Wal-Mart to buy my coffee maker and spent $30 on the Black and Decker SmartBrew.  But, I’m happy to tell you that it has not steered me wrong and for that price, it is making me great coffee.  For those of you who aren’t willing to spend three digits for a coffee maker, or need only a temporary solution that still makes great coffee, consider this coffee maker.

As an inside joke to those of you that already have one, the rest of you will enjoy the Darth Vader effect when you open the lid – I say no more.  Follow me on Twitter to see the pictures .

Check out:
- Our Coffee Maker Report Card criteria
- The Black and Decker SmartBrew review
- MakeGoodCoffee.com’s Coffee Maker Report Card

An amazing story about coffee, or a story about amazing coffee?  Both.

I had my first coffee at Coava Coffee Roasters in April when I visited Portland, Oregon for the first time.  I was deciding if I wanted to live here or not, and maybe Coava helped that decision along, because here I am.  It was the second time in my life that coffee was served to me by pourover, so it was still relatively new to me.  The first time was at Planet Bean in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. 

Read: Profile Planet Bean Coffee
Read: Portland’s Big Coffee Scene

I woke up one morning, and like so many of us, started the day by making sure everything was still right in the world through my mobile device.  I checked the Twitter world, and now that I’d moved to Portland, the city’s name caught my eye in a tweet.  I learned that the esteemed Coffee Review coffee rating service had granted an almost unprecedented score of 95/100 to coffee roasted by somebody right here in Portland.  It was Coava.  The coffee, a Guatemalan Bourbon grown in the Xeucalvitz Community.

The rating of 95/100 by Coffee Review is a big endorsement.  Rating coffee is subjective by nature, but to the best of my knowledge, it is not a service biased to certain roasters.  In other words, if they’re giving out a rating this strong, it’s good coffee, go get some!  I had only heard of a rating that high being given out for the Hacienda La Esmaralda from Panama that sells literally for hundreds of dollars a pound, and for which the book “God in a Cup” was written.

To think I could get a pound of similarly rated coffee for the price of a normal pound, I decided I was getting some that day.  I’m only about a ten minute drive from Coava‘s Grand Avenue location, and I will admit I had a touch of the hysterics as I was driving there.  In fact, I may have parked on the sidewalk.  Part of me was expecting it to be sold out when I got there since the Coffee Review tweet had been posted that morning.

When I walked in and turned to the selection of bulk coffee, I saw the Guatemala Xeucalvitz and reached for the very pound you see in the picture above.  I turned to the gentleman behind the counter for the following exchange…

Me (holding up the coffee, wide-eyed): “This is it!”

Coava employee (nowhere near my excitement): “Yes, it is.”

Me: “This is the stuff that Coffee Review rated.”

Coava employee, nodded his head.

Me (almost incredulous): “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Coava employee: “Yes I do, will that be all you need today?”

I couldn’t decide if he really did know, or if he was so sure of his company’s product that he didn’t need to make as big a deal of it as I was.  The woman pictured here offered to brew me a cup by pourover as you see in the picture, and I accepted without hesitation.  I know I was only ten minutes from home, but I just really wanted to try this coffee.

When I got home, I understood the first employee’s response to my excitement.  He DID know just how good their coffee is.  I’m not saying that because the cup they served me was amazing.  Or, because the cup of it I made for myself at home was amazing.  I say that because when I visited Coffee Review‘s website to learn more about Coava, I counted a total of FORTY ONE coffees roasted by Coava with a score of at least 90.  Among them, a total of three coffees rated 95/100! 

You’ll be hearing alot about Coava Coffee Roasters to come.  I’ll be trying alot of their coffees, and you can order them at their website online.

Check out: Coava Coffee Roasters
Follow me on Twitter.

I’ve worked in marketing in my life.  I had one friend in particular with no respect for my career choice at the time.  While I tried to explain the merit of quality marketing and company communications to the public, he told me I was in the propaganda and manipulation business.  Before moving from Canada, I saw a commercial from coffee brand Nabob that made me reconsider my friend’s perspective. 

Nabob is a Canadian brand of retail grocery store coffee.  If you look deeply enough, you’ll see that they are owned by Kraft Foods, the mac and cheese people!  First, we’ll look at the commercial I saw, and then we’ll look at the follow-through on the company’s website.  From there, you be the judge of whether a multinational conglomerate that says the “right things” is actually making a difference, or simply paying lip service for better marketing.

If a company wanted to strike a chord with coffee farmers living in poverty, this actor wouldn’t waste a pound of coffee by throwing it on the floor.  You may think I’m splitting hairs, but if you had an appreciation for the toil of a coffee farmer and the fact that on average, it takes one coffee worker to support one coffee drinker, then you wouldn’t waste product for a more interesting commercial.

A lot of money went into this commercial, clearly partnered with the Rainforest Alliance.  A 30-second spot doesn’t usually tell you the whole story, so luckily these days, we have websites for companies to use as more expansive brochures of their initiatives.  Let’s learn more about Nabob’s coveted Better Beans, Better Coffee, Better Planet program.  Page 1:

Bravo, Nabob!  All coffee is naturally green in color before it’s roasted.

I think the Rainforest Alliance is a cool initiative and I’m looking forward to learning more about it.  Here, there is no information given on environmental stewardship or sustainability.  I hope “greener” is in quotation marks to separate it in meaning from the color, and not because the marketer isn’t sure what the term means.

Hmmmm, no follow-up comments.  The Nabob coffee is green out of the coffee cherry (as is all coffee), and it is cultivated in undefined responsible ways.

Now, it’s just comical.  I think they assume that nobody would actually click the third and fourth coffee bean icons.  This reference to a better planet must relate to the undefined environmental practices, but the illustration shows us the tin can that the coffee comes in.  I’m becoming concerned that the Rainforest Alliance is a seal that lets lazy corporations pretend they’re making a difference – it is the only credibility that Nabob has in this campaign.

If you really want a better coffee, don’t buy it from the grocery store.  If you really want a coffee that’s better for the environment, look for the Organic seal.  If you’re interested in putting a few more pennies into the hands of the hardest working people in the coffee supply chain, look for the Fair Trade seal.  In other words, find your local coffee roaster.  If you’re having trouble locating one, e-mail me and I will be happy to help you find one.