To address the Philz controversy: I didn’t realise they weren’t widely available. It was heavily suggested in the Patreon poll to pick the coffees, so I presumed it had decent distinction US-wide. My apologies! I also don’t think I understood the massive grocery variation by region (coming from a small island). Feel free to pick your own winner from the top 4! Regardless - I hope this was a fun video!
Cafe Bustelo is not widely available outside of South Florida (for good reason). EDIT: I see I was wayyyyy wrong about Bustelo's reach in the US. I had no idea it was available nationwide. Living in Miami and knowing just how bitter it is, I thought it would only work in markets where "coladas" reign supreme.
I wouldn't consider Philz the same category. Philz started as an artisan coffee shop in San Francisco. It grew quickly and is becoming widely distributed. I've seen it across the US major cities. I was even surprised to find a shop open in Chicago.
Never heard of the winner either and i'm in the states (but on the East coast) but don't generally buy coffee from the grocery store. I commonly see New England Coffee though that wasn't represented here.
@@JonNelsonCycling also note that instead of putting the gold play button behind the set to show it off to viewers, this button is in the editing suite. Like it’s a testament to the crew that makes this channel great. I might be reading too much into that, but I choose to believe that this is a classy channel
That's bc the employee don't "make" the coffee. They just put beans in a large coffee maker and press start. It's likely the grocery store product is also different than what's made in much larger amount for the stores and also you have more control over how the coffee is made at home than at the restaurant.
Yeah, as someone who works at Tim Hortons, our coffee to me tastes like battery acid, I have to put butter and half a packet of salt just to drink it, when I don't have time to make my own.
I tried Tim Horton's in Leicester... about a week before UK hit lockdown! I was excited by it. But when I had it, was rubbish. As you say, they just don't know how to make it.
@@truthfortots3288 I would honestly say that the cheapest whole bean coffee you can find in your local grocery store is going to be better than the most expensive pre-ground coffee you can find. It makes a world of difference.
Yeah, whole bean is always a significant upgrade over anything pre-ground in my experience. The worst cup of whole bean I ever made was kinda stale since I had forgotten about it in my pantry. and you know what? It actually reminded me of how pre-ground coffee tastes
@@mussdem I think it's both. I think the stuff in the bags is different by default from the stuff they serve you, and I suspect the blends are slightly adjusted for the differences in palates. The canadian store/resto brew is fully intended to be blended up as a double double.
Wow that meta-edit at 9:07 was one of the smoothest transitions in a youtube video!we all know how excellent your taste in coffee is, but your taste in video production deserves credit too, between this, the brad pitt commercial, and the portable espresso videos, I nominate you for an oscar!
Totally agree. I also appreciate when they get their horizontal lines perfectly straight. Though they did miss applying the color/log adjustment @10:58
Yes they use their coffee, what I found on my trips to Olean , NY for work was this. If you order a large doubledouble you get the best ever cup of coffee, IMHO. But one morning on the way to work and a stop for a Lrg dbldbl, they said they were out of creamer and would put the creamer and sugar in the bag. No issue right? Wrong, mixed up a dbl dbl with what they gave me and guess what........................just a mediocre cup of cofffee. It's the creamer and 10 years later I still can't find out or mix things to make it taste so good.
Tim Horton's changed their coffee supplier years ago. I notice that the label on the coffee in this video said "Original Tim Horton's" (or something like that), suggesting that it is indeed the old variety and not the new variety served in the shops. According to a quick google, the old supplier is now the source for McDonald's, which helps explain why McD's now tastes so much better than I remember in my youth.
Your quarter finals match up between Tim Hortons and McDonald's was by far the most interesting to me! Up here in Canada, it's like mythology at this point that Tim's always had the best 'fast food' coffee, and maybe 10 years ago McDonald's stole their coffee supplier and Tim's had to get a new one, which wasn't as good. I myself still prefer McDonald's coffee for something cheap and quick on the go (other than Starbucks Blonde roasts), but it was really cool seeing you taste each head to head!
As a fellow Canadian, I think what I've come to is that it's very store dependent. McDonalds is always been quite a decent cup, but Tim's can vary from incredible to the worst, most sour thing, just by travelling half a km.
I've never liked Tim's (or McDonald's) in their places, but interesting to learn here that the coffee itself is decent. I just feel like how they brew and store it doesn't help it out in the stores.
This video was surprisingly touching for me! I used to watch my mother drink Eight O’Clock coffee, but I remember it being quite bitter since I was so young. Now, as an adult, I drink Starbucks Veranda. To hear they’re so similar and I accidentally grew into my mother’s taste makes me feel very close to her. I should probably give Eight O’Clock another shot!
Eight o'clock is my choice because I was raised on it. Only the A&P grocery store sold it back in the day and when A&P closed their stores eight o'clock went on the market to all grocery stores to sell... so glad or it would have been history.
I was a barista for a couple of years at Philz. They trained us to push Tesora on new customers, but I always recommended Silken Splendor instead. Looks like my personal taste checked out!
Trader Joe’s, a smaller novelty grocery store has many, many coffees, which I think are mostly theirs. I would love to see you do taste testing on those! I enjoyed this taste test. Thanks!
When I worked for Starbucks, we were allowed to take home a free bag of beans every week, and Veranda blend was basically the only coffee I drank for about 3 years because of that. It’s surprisingly drinkable, all things considered. James’s face on tasting the Pike Place roast definitely brought back memories though.
When I used to drink the office coffee, my choices were generally either that Peet's Major Dickason's Blend, or Starbuck's Pike's Place. This is what eventually forced me into bringing my own coffee into the office.
People actually drink Starbucks crap. They arrived in Sweden, being confident and just closed all their locations because European people actually like good coffee.
Yeah, I currently work for starbucks and thought pike place just tasted like that cause it was sitting in the urn for ages. Decided to take it as my markout one week, and nope, turns out it just tastes like that. It's a shame we don't have veranda here in the uk.
I would love to see another update to this, maybe one around the holidays to celebrate the year anniversary of this video. Thank you James for the amazing content and the great time your provide to all your fans and fellow coffee lovers.
Found it very impressive how consistent your choices were. Basically every head to head was guessable. Your ability to distinguish profiles and judge the quality is really impressive.
I think James should have had the Tim Hortons on the counter at the end with a smaller sized Canadian flag next to it. Then he should have apologized in kinsmanship.
I was shocked that Tim's did so well. They must do something tragically wrong to it in the stores. Like he said in the video too, I've haven't enjoyed their coffee from the store either
I’ve long said that Dunkin’s original blend is some of the best of the basic coffees you can get from a grocery store, and now I am so glad that you have affirmed that.
Many decades ago the Dunkin Donuts was the best. Somehow and why they changed it several years ago. It is not the same as it was 45 years ago. Just saying.
TLDR; You can get close to making it taste the same at home, but not quite. I have tried my best to replicate the taste of Dunkin's hot coffee original, made regular at home and I can't get it right, but close: 1) Bought a BUNN Commercial VP-17 coffee maker. Same brand and brew method as in the stores, just smaller. Water at 200 degrees, fast pour-over brew style. 2) Bought whole beans in store. 3) Filtered water. 4) I've heard it's between 3 and 3.5 ounces of coffee per 64 ounce pot, so I tried 3.25oz of coffee for 64 ounces of water. 5) Ground the coffee coarse, like they do. 6) A medium regular has 45ml of light cream (1.5 ounces or 3 tablespoons NOT half-n-half), and 3 sugars (3 teaspoons). I put that in mine, then topped it with coffee until getting to 14 fluid ounces total (dunks medium hot size). It tastes very good and is close, but the aroma and taste is not the same. Further research suggests that the dunks beans sold in grocery store and in their own coffee shops are not the same sourced beans that they make their coffee with. Also the beans they make the coffee with are very freshly roasted (no more than 3 days old).
As someone of cuban descent that lives in a highly Cuban populated area, I will say that for cafe bustelo, it’s typically used in cafe cubano. I’m unsure of what brewing methods you used, but we use a moka pot to brew our coffee instead of something like an American coffee pot. It’s also consumed with sugar that’s been whipped with the first drops of concentrated coffee to create the espumita (sweet foam). Cafe bustelo (as well as Pilon and Las Llaves) are a little more finely ground than their more American counterparts to create a more concentrated brew. I’m not saying you’re wrong for judging them all the same, but I have a feeling that like cafe bustelo, some of the other coffees you might not have liked may have been manufactured with different brewing methods in mind.
I drink cafe bustelo at home as a pour over and i like it. I prefer my brewed coffee at home better then when i buy coffee on the road/restaurant here in the 🇺🇸
I agree 100% with you. I was introduced to Café Bustelo 25 years ago by a fellow teacher who is Guatemalan. My 1st taste blew me away with the flavour. She taught me how to correctly brew it in Moka pot. Today, I still have that same Moka pot and still drinking Café Bustelo with gusto. I do also drink Café du Monde coffee on alternate days. Just love that jolting flavor of the chicory.
I don't drink coffee. I watch this channel because it's such a pleasure to see someone take such pleasure in all the particularities of his "hobby". (and the good hair!)
@@STEVEARABIA1 marginally different and depends heavily on the location. I find a good tim hortons that cleans the machines properly and cares abiut the customers will have better coffee in store. Where as a shitty tim hortons in a mall where they have "too much" traffic to clean as often tastes like wet socks after being burnt on a firepit. Whereas the home grounds are cobtrolled to how you woukd prefer brewing it.
@@lonestarr1490 Tbf, they are totally right about that. The people who watch this channel have a pretty big bias toward excitement, novelty and how do coffee compare. While most people consuming coffee just want a standard good cup to start their day, not a nuanced interisting taste experience every morning. I say that as someone who only likes coffee for the taste experience, I can't drink much cafeine daily sadly :/
I think you should do a comparison light roast only, medium roast only and dark roast only. I think that would be a more fair comparison especially since you favor light roast, your natural bias will always tend make it impossible for a dark roast to come out on top! Additionally some people like me prefer dark roast and would like your opinion on the best dark roast!
I was never much of a coffee person until I started watching James Hoffmann, who I found via his collab with Tom Scott. I was _sure_ after bingeing his channel that I'd be an interesting, fruity, acidic, complex light-coffee person, like he is. Totally certain! So, on his recommendation, being a very poor person who can't even fathom spending a thousand dollars or more on an espresso setup, or even a few hundred on a good grinder for pourovers, I got a subscription to Cometeer, figuring they'd do better than I could anyway. Lo and behold, I hated every single light roast they sent me the first month. The mediums were "fine". But the dark roasts... oh my god, they're like magic! To be fair, I like lattes and cappuccinos, and without the milk and Splenda to mellow them out, most (but not all) of the darks are too bitter for me. I almost exclusively drink iced coffee here in Arizona, and I do add _more_ milk and sweetener for the darker roasts, but there's something magical that happens when bringing up a really developed roast that just isn't there with the mediums. Anyway, point being... at first, I, too, wished James would give his recommendations on the best dark roast, but then I had an epiphany. Why on Earth would I want _that?_ That would be like asking an off-road rock crawling enthusiast what the best track race car is. Being steeped in the car world in general, they might have _some_ more knowledge than a random person off the street, but it's going to be inherently biased. So I decided if I want recommendations on darker roasts, I needed to find me a coffee expert who _likes_ medium and dark roasts. That lead me to Morgan Drinks Coffee, and honestly I love them both, so I couldn't be happier!
@@living-wellon-less5669 Thanks! However, I probably won't get into roasting my own... I'm disabled, and am mostly looking for very portable, small-footprint setups that I can keep in my office where I spend most of my time, rather than going out to the kitchen. I'm looking into an Aeropress, a stand-alone milk foamer, and a decent hand-grinder at the moment (I already have a really nice pourover kettle I use to melt my Cometeer). Gonna ask for some of it for Christmas, and then I'll fill in the blanks myself, and I think I can get a decent-ish setup for hopefully around $200.
While I work at Starbucks, we did little coffee tastings where corporate would pair coffees and pastries or we would just taste the different blends and try and distinguish notes. I swear to God, every time Pike Place was in the tasting, we would all become super quiet and awkward about it with our manager. We were all terrified to say that it is one of the worst-tasting coffee blends ever, since its the primary blend used during the afternoon & is supposed to be their "famous" blend lol
First time I tried Starbuck's in the store, I returned to the counter wanting a different cup because it tasted so horrible, I thought it was bad, for some reason. No fancy latte, cream, frosting or anything, just a regular brew with sugar. Not to trash Starbucks, but I have given it second and third chances, at different locations and every time it tastes like an old man's smoking pipe. Like he emptied his ashes into the coffee - that's the only way I can describe the taste. Later, I heard a rumor that Starbuck's intentionally burns the beans. In who's world is that a good thing, if true? Dawn, have you ever heard of a similar complaint? Curious if it's just my taste and preference, or if I'm on the right track calling this?
@SomebodysPapa I have no idea if the beans are burnt intentionally or not. We didn't roast them in store. They were shipped to us in giant bags lol all I know is that it tastes awful. The cigarette ashes taste is spot on. If you want to get a good brew from Starbucks, you have to go early enough to get something other than Pike Place. Veranda is good imo, and the Christmas Blend during the holidays is super nice as well.
I only saw the thumbnail for this. I’m from Texas, and I can tell that this person is not just bc I don’t see Cafe Ole in the thumbnail. It’s the store brand for H‑E‑B, the greatest and best grocery store on the planet. They have the best coffee and you can even grind it right in the store and bag it yourself.
Peet’s Major D had always been my go to Grocery store brand. Though I usually buy whole bean. It broke my heart when he eliminated it initially, but then, by some type of divine intervention, he corrected himself, and then it showed up at the end! ❤
Major Dickason is very popular at my local grocery, and as Peet's actually prints roast date on the bag, I can purchase it within a month or so of roasting. It's a good daily driver, and often on sale.
Major D is my daily cup, love it black. I find it chocolatey and sweet. Certainly there are bitter notes, but I like the contrasts. I also don't eat carbs or sweets, so it might be I'm more sensitive. The other night I tasted some sphagetti sauce (not store bought, no added sugar) and was immediately hit by hiw sweet it was.
As a Louisiana native, the Cafe du Monde reaction was PERFECT. Working in New Orleans for many years, I think I’ve had black chicory coffee requested once. It is basically always served as Cafe au Lait (milk coffee). If you’re lucky, there are beignets involved and the bitter, smoky chicory stands up against the fried dough and mountain of powdered sugar.
Fellow Louisiana native. I totally agree with you, although I was a bit surprised that he picked Starbucks over Community. Neither are great coffees, I always buy local whole bean when I can, but I never thought that a blind test would be that close between those two in particular.
My family in Michigan drinks Tim Horton. You can't get the bags in all grocery stores, it's kind of tricky in Wisconsin to find it, but it's a brand found in American grocery stores. Other than Hawaiian beans, all coffee isn't from America anyway.
You might find it interesting that Tim Hortons and McCafe are roasted by the same company. The husband of one of my coworkers is the district manager for Tim Hortons in Western New York and used to be the same for McDonald's just north in Ontario and she brought this up in a previous conversation about coffee. I greatly enjoyed this video!
@@ZM-jb6gc This is a local choice by your specific nearest McDonalds restaurant, tho. Some MsDonalds restaurants haven't changed their coffee proportions even thru the pandemic
That is pretty interesting. Since you said in Western New York, you may know what this is. Jamacian Me Crazy and Witches Brew are the same thing; and both terrible.
The Netherlands has a huge coffee culture, with many old Dutch brands. It would be very interesting to see a tasting of those coffee's, i.e. Douwe Egberts, Kanis en Gunnink, Max Havelaar, etc.
Absolutely loved the fact that Tim hortons and Dunkin’ went head to head as I feel like those are the two breakfast/donut places that have cult followings. Reminds me of the Sheetz vs Wawa rivalry.
I didn't even think about it, but those two totally do have cult followings! I was indoctrinated into the Cult of Dunkin and I wouldn't want it any other way XD
Never had Tim Horton's (I think it's a Canadian chain?), but I really like Dunkin' Donuts out of all coffee I can get at the grocery store. So I almost always have it on hand for a brew.
Same!! I also found it amusing when he described the Tim Hortons coffee as "friendly" several times during the tasting. Even our coffee ascribes to the stereotype! ☺️☕🇨🇦
I live in Italy and I don't know any of these brands. What I find extremely interesting is that, in the first round, on many occasions the more expensive, sometimes way more expensive coffee was eliminated straight away when confronted with a much cheaper competitor. This shows how cost does not necessarily relate with our own personal taste, and one doesn't necessarily get more when one pays more. I find this to be very true also in other fields such as beer, gin and vodka.
A lot of that has to do with his personal preference for lighter roasts, I think. The cheaper, more readily available stuff tends to be of lighter roasts.
I work for an Italian company and they provide free coffee from Lavazza. I think it's OK, not bad, but prefer a brand called Intelligentia that is brewed in Chicago
Ah! Very happy to find Major Dickason's was the pick for dark roast, as someone who has only tried a few different coffees at that roast and settled on that! I had switched from Caribou's Mahogany to Peet's, especially since there was a water-process decaf version of Peet's, and both I and my dad thought it was a big improvement over Mahogany **even** as a decaf. Will happily continue buying that! I haven't looked through the channel enough yet, but I'd be very interested in a decaf tournament if there isn't already one! I love coffee, but day-to-day it's just better for the ol' blood pressure to keep it decaf :)
If all the packages were freshly opened right before the tasting (and I see no reason to suspect otherwise), it really doesn't make that much of a difference. The real issue with pre-ground coffee is that it stales so much faster, like within days after breaking the seal. (Also, did he say some of them were pre-ground? I thought what he said was that the winning brand was the only one that doesn't sell pre-ground. That doesn't imply that all the other ones were pre-ground.)
From what I see on the store shelves. In the states the ground to whole bean ratio sold is about 50-50 and there is little in the way of instant sold at all. The verity of K cups is huge though. It has replaced the instant I suspect. I see he left the Costco, Sam's and the other big house brands off this list. maybe he cant get it? I don't think I have seen Phil's in the local Food Lion. BTW I always use whole bean.
I'm surprised how emotionally invested I got when it was Tim Hortons vs Dunkin. Even though DD lost I think that's the most patriotic I've felt in decades.
Here near the Canadian border, that's all the coffee we have: Tim's and Dunkin. I think he picked correctly, but it's definitely a personal preference! 😅
I like CB a lot too even though I prefer medium roast. It’s tastes so smooth and flavorful to me. I was surprised to see him cringe after tasting it both times lol. EDIT: now two months after drinking mostly specialty coffee, I can’t stand Bustello anymore lol
I would love to see this head to head again but with Lavazza and La Columbe coffee included! I love Lavazza coffee the best as far as grocery coffee goes, but La Columbe is getting some traction here in the US as well. Also, I am so happy to not be the only one that thinks Pikes coffee tastes like trash and am so surprised Dunkin was a top contender!
As a New Englander with Canadian relatives, Dunkins vs Tim Hortons felt like when the Canadiens play the Bruins, I wasn't sure which way I should be cheering!
Many of these are available as whole beans. I’d love to see a remake with only the whole bean versions. Tip: 8 O’clock puts the roasting date on the bag. Get the freshest. If your favorite brand doesn’t have a roasting date, pick the bag with less air space. Air means old beans.
@@pilotcriticI have been buying Seattle’s Best for a few years now and have been tasting a decline of flavor! I just read that Starbucks sold it to Nestle! Well I need to find a new coffee!
For the longest time, you could grind the 8 O'clock right in the store. That was my mom's favorite - and boy did that aisle of the store smell amazing.
Philz is the reason I have become a weird coffee person. They are more known for their mixed coffee drinks, but they do a pour over for every drink in their cafes and list the flavor profiles of all their roasts.
I've never heard of this brand before I thought I had tried all the grocery store coffees we have. Where are you in the US? Like is it a west coast thing or something like that?
Philz is my favorite coffee. But nothing beats it made fresh in the Cafe. Pour over heaven. I miss it since I moved away from SF and I'm not driving 30 min to Sacramento for a cup. Well......maybe I will some weekday...I miss it that much.
@Jack Spearman 😆👌 I've never appreciated anything from Folgers either haha . They even sometimes give free coffee away at work and I always know if it's folgers.
@@Ambrosianite I once got some Folgers on reduction from an American sweet shop who were closing my local branch, and it was pretty instant regret - just tasted totally burnt, whether I used filter or Aeropress
As a worker for one of the major coffee brands here I've been hoping James would talk about it more. I love the coffee we have and we even do tastings in store so we can understand our own coffee better but we never really talk about our coffee vs other coffee so I've been wanting a more expert opinion about it for a while.
I live in California and went to a Philz cafe recently for the first time and it really impressed me how good their coffee was. After watching this I'm absolutely picking up some of their beans to try at home. Our current day to day staple is the starbucks pike place
Your videos , tutorials and professional insights as combo are enlightening and I appreciated all videos so far you did. Thanks for being you and making this awesome content 😊. Would love to see more of those and maybe comparison of different countries 😊
I’m surprised too. But come to think of it they are designing “least offensive coffees” on purpose, so I guess it could make sense. Their game is consistency.
They probably have a HUUUGE research&develop team behind all those coffes, going through all kinds of different test groups to find the one that upsets the least amount of people. Especially McDonalds with their McCafe nowadays kinda wants to sell the coffeeshop vibe and back it up with okayish coffee.
I really hope you test Trader Joe's different coffees at some point as these are the main source of my homebrews. I ONLY add liquid stevia to my cups, so there is always that little bit of stevia taste in every coffee I try. I believe I should have a "weird coffee (and stevia) person" shirt. LOL Love your channel, keep up your good work.
Yeah I think that Philz coffee had an unfair advantage because it’s obviously a local whole bean roast, and was thus far fresher and better than all the blends. Not really a “grocery store coffee” there. But I think it does make the point that the best grocery store coffee experience you’re likely to have is something locally produced and whole-bean. That’s been my experience where I currently live in Colorado, for sure.
@yumitemple3507 That’s a great question! My favorites at the moment would probably be…. Ozo coffee, specifically their Isabelle espresso blend year round and whatever their seasonal blend is. I was really obsessed with their “Cozy Cabin” blend over the winter, and hope they bring it back. Huck Coffee is another great local local micro-roaster I’ve had good experiences with. Also this new local brand of coffee called “Drive” packaged in gas cans has shown up at King Soopers lately and I’ve tried their Baja and LeMans blends with positive results.
In the western US, there's a regional no-frills grocer called Winco Foods, and they sell private label coffee in bulk for $8 a pound. It's roasted in Portland OR, which is where I live, and moves fairly quick, so I've found it's one of if not the most reliable ways for me to get good whole bean coffee locally.
Philz are now placed in Grocery stores in CA - thankfully. It’s far superior coffee than most but is not priced at a premium vs. the higher end domestic or imported Italians. Philz Silky Splendor priced against regular (aka not very good) grocery brands like Folgers its $4-5 p/12oz more expensive
I recently found Philz coffee at my local target and decided to try it because of this video. Best cup I've had in years, even compared to "artisan" coffee shops.
Worked at Philz for 5 years and can definitely say that the coffee is different. Each blend of coffee has 2-7 roasts of beans all sourced from around the world. Each bean is roasted to the correct profile and then blended together creating each unique coffee blend. When visiting a store you are presented with a very full-bodied cup of coffee that is crafted one cup at a time via a special Philz version of pour over.
I'm just glad Dunkin made a good showing. I know that in store it's kind of a different taste in the northeast vs the rest of the US, but my grandmother moved down south like 20 years ago and I think she cried when her local grocery store started selling the Dunkin bags.
As someone who lives very close to the original Philz I am so happy to see they won. They are a sf based and family owned company with an amazing history and story. The father who started it all is the kindest person you will ever meet, from the one original location and even as they expanded and grew the business he would still come in to the different locations and get behind the counter and make your coffee or sit and talk with you. They do make some amazing coffees that are so flavorful and robust and they do all of their coffee ground to order and served in the pour over manner. Again I’m so happy for them for winning
As someone who had worked for Philz for years, their coffee is best made yourself. The pour-over method used at the actual stores is aggressive and there's a lot of inconsistency cup-to-cup. Doing it yourself results in much better results! I miss the single-origin blends. Phil is incredibly nice although it's sad to see how Jacob and upper management treat their stores and employees.
@@roanlo1213 Interesting. I'd still take a freshly brewed if inconsistent cup from Philz any day compared to whatever is in the drip machines at Starbucks or Peet's, and honestly I'd take it over a lot of the other pour-overs and such that I've had too. I do buy Philz beans for aeropress at home, but I've just always thought their in-store cups were a real treat.
@@roanlo1213 For me I think its more like getting a cup at Philz is just different from at home, different brewing method and tastes of how its done so its fun variety. Plus while there are tons of even better smaller coffee shops around the Bay Area they’re still just a very reliable choice if they’re nearby.
I'm American, and was looking forward to something like this. Peet's is my favorite here in the bay area so it was nice to see them in the race at all. Please keep doing more american coffee stuff.
I just wanna give props to Dunkin for always having batch brew filter on whenever I go. Starbucks batch brew filter is quickly becoming the new McDonalds milkshake machine in that they rarely have it on, and when asked they say it’s ‘being cleaned / broken’
@@StucklnAWell I think he just means the regular coffee machine isn't being used. I'm experiencing this too. They always look around like you asked if their coworker might be on break, like they haven't answered that 28 times already. They USED to go whoops and start a batch, not anymore. The point is double, to save money because most people are there for the coffee-flavored milkshakes anyway, and to drive the few remaining actual coffee drinkers to expensive alternatives. I'm usually okay with the more expensive pour-over drip coffee. Andy I hear you but I will ALWAYS pick a starbucks pourover over a DD. I just have a personal distaste for DD, always tastes like peanut oil and napkins to me.
I work at a Starbucks and we stop doing the brewed dark and blonde in the afternoon because it doesn't sell as much. You can ask for a pour over of any kind if you don't mind a wait. I do recommend going inside to get a pour over.
I've been able to find Dunkin' in bean form at Kroger and Tom Thumb (part of Albertson's). I live not too far from a local coffee roaster, but if all else fails I will drink Dunkin'.
I love Dunkin coffee, AT Dunkin Donuts, but their bagged coffee definitely doesn't taste anywhere near as good, or even similar. Folgers Black Silk for me, I don't do any grinding or fancy brewing, I'm entirely too lazy for that, but I'd actually like to get into it, just don't know if I ever will 🤣
@@johnnygeorgopoulos4072 Part of being lazy is clean-up, and tbh if you're just doing drip / pour over / immersion (french press, clever dripper) which are all pretty quick and easy, a good hand grinder takes very little time for the reward and is insanely easy to clean-up (barely any effort). Whereas a nice electric grinder is more expensive and more work to clean since they retain more at lower price points. I've converted a lot of lazy friends into grinding their own coffee once they taste it and just use a simple Clever dripper since clean up is literally "toss filter in garbage/compost."
I’m not a sophisticated coffee drinker, but I drink it black and prefer light to medium roast. Whenever I’m traveling and grab a quick convenient cup of McCafe, from the drive through, I find myself surprised about half way through and muttering “not a bad cup of coffee”. I have been mocked by others for sharing this, but watching the McCafe get mildly positive feedback was hugely satisfying and weirdly therapeutic for me.
Funnily enough, Economic Ninja (YT channel) also raves about McDonald's coffee which I always thought was weird until I kept seeing people like you comment otherwise. I guess I need to give it a shot, haha.
I love Chock Full o Nuts. It’s cheap, smooth, and rich. It also comes in a metal can which means I have lots of free cans to use for stuff. Oh and it blends well with other coffee.
Another fan of Chock full o' nuts here but I in a place it's not available here. My favorite coffee of all time was Gevalia Costa Rica Peaberry The coffee that was the WORST THING EVER was Jamaica Blue Mountain
As a former philz employee, it was nice to see their flagship blend-the “Tesora” get kicked out early, but the silken splendor was one of my personal faves and easily the most popular light roast, probably in the top 3 most popular philz coffees in general out of the 15+ blends every store has. Nice work, I’ll have to pick myself up a bag of silken splendor and remind myself what all the fuss was about. It’s going to hurt to have to pay full price though 😅
@@blarghblargh the reasoning I always heard is that tesora was the closest blend to an espresso style taste, and they are thinking about Starbucks as competition. All the employees agreed on 3 things. 1. Tesora sucked. 2. Starbucks house blend sucked. 3. Tesora and the Starbucks house blend were indeed very similar… I think the idea was to get Starbucks enthusiast in the door with a familiar flavor in Tesora with our “Frappuccino” stand in, the “mojito,” and then get them curious about trying the other blends. In Philz’s defense, that goal has the double effect of making them money if it works, but also expanding the pallets of people who otherwise wouldn’t bother taking coffee more seriously
@@zwsh89 makes total sense once you explain it. philz' goal worked entirely in my case, and he basically got me to try light roasts, drink my coffee black, and prefer pour over.
@@blarghblargh nice, that actually makes me really happy to hear! Working at philz was a corporate cog-in-the-wheel type normal job, and sucked my soul out day by day, but unlike other barista jobs, and whether or not we converted people specifically into philz coffee drinkers or not, it always made me and my coworkers genuinely proud that what we were doing was actually helping people rediscover coffee, improving their quality of life, opening their pallets, and educating them on how to be in control of their coffee experience. Whether you came to philz for your pour over didn’t matter to me, but if you came to me and learned that you can like a pour over, and I can help you decide if you’re a light roast or dark roast kind of person, that really made my day. I now buy all my coffee from random sources, but I still use the tricks and techniques I learned there to maximize my coffee enjoyment, and I love that my former customers are empowered to do the same!
As an American and an East Coaster - I agree with your evaluation. My “poor man’s” coffee is Dunkin’. When we burn through the Anchorhead (local specialty) we fall back on Dunkin. The Starbucks you tasted is literally the only one that isn’t awful. If forced to get coffee at a Starbucks, I will get the Veranda Blonde as a pour over. Peet’s has really tanked. It used to be better than it is today.
I had to stop drinking caffeinated coffee because of a heart issue. I looked all over for a decaf coffee that tasted decent. I tried a lot of different brands. To my surprise, it was the Dunkin Donuts decaf that tasted the best.
Me not knowing anything about coffees went and grabbed a bag of Dunkin amongst the wall of daunting choices the other day at the grocery store. Glad I went with a solid choice.
@@kristinb5121. Decaf suggestions. Pete’s coffee decaf French roast. Starbucks decaf Italian roast in the individual instant coffee packets (crazy but true).
Glad I watched this again. I've learned more since my last comment. What you have taught me is to find coffees I like better. My best friend has tastes that run acid and fruity.....no accounting for taste. In the meantime I succeeded in contributing to Patreon but have had technical difficulties there and with the discord....
I worked for peets coffee in one of their coffee bars for 4 years and they always said that peets is supposed to be known for their dark roast so I’m glad that still holds true with you and it wasn’t just some corporate big talk Edit: just saw you comment asking if the coffee is that same in the shop and I can tell you it’s 10x fresher. We were delivered coffee weekly from the California roaster (I worked in Chicago) and the roast date we received was never more then 5 days old.
i have noticed peets have put roasting dates on their grocery store coffees dunno of that was always a thing or a more recent thing, but the extra level of tracability compared to everything else is nice to have
@@nevadanate4957 There is no comparison. Starbucks dark roasts taste like someone made a mistake. Though I've heard people say that their "scorched" bean flavor is a trademark, I can't imagine why someone would want that.
I would have loved to see a chart plotting each coffee by position and cost per 100g. With the exception of the Cafe du Monde, it seemed that higher price generally seemed to correspond with better coffee, would be interesting to see how strong that correlation is.
On a similar note, it would have been nice if the editors had retained the price/mass info under the package images during the later rounds so we could continue making easy comparisons.
Maybe relatedly, it seems that cafe brands did better. I imagine they probably have to trade on taste more since people make decisions about a cup of coffee more often than they do a bag/tub and are less price sensitive at a cafe vs in a store.
Fascinating comparisons! I did something similar when I was trying to find something I could easily drink black. I settled on McCafé as my go-to black coffee. I quite enjoy it. But you've given me a few more to (re)consider. Surprisingly, they're mostly the big drive-thru brands. I'll also take a good look at Philz.
Agreed I drink mostly grocery coffee but whole bean and one of the more local fresher roasted ones. Tastes good to me especially compared with ground coffee as it’s often really burned or nasty tasting.
Very interesting and it's always impressive how fine tuned James' palate is. One thing I would find interesting on this topic is how consistent a brand is with it's taste profile. I've always wondered how big brands keep the quality and taste consistent given the huge variability of sources of raw beans, or if they are actually consistent at all.
I was definitely impressed that he started recognizing the coffees on subsequent rounds - a good sign that he's actually identifying particular qualities and not just imagining tasting notes.
from what i know, there are research teams for those companies to produce consistent flavours, which consist of different types of beans from same suppliers at specific ratios. it may change if there is a huge change to the plantations available to the company or they simply deploy newer blends with the same tag on the product. either way, industrial production means quality control and minimize variability with mass production, if they can't manage to do that well, they have failed as a "fast food" coffee manufacturer.
We have been drinking Peets for 35+ years (lived near the original in Berkeley) so we panicked momentarily when you tossed MD. Glad to see it squeeeeked by. Ordered some Dunkin to compare.
MD is genuinely one of the best dark roasts I've ever had. It's dark, but still complex in flavor/acidity which you don't find with other brands. I think part of it was just his knee jerk reaction to dark roasts as he was grading on sweetness.
This would be such a great mainstay on your channel as a recurring series as there are so many more people buying these coffees than care to admit it. Plus, as one of those people, I know firsthand that these coffees change by batch and season as time goes on as you implied with your mention of past experiences with Tim Horton coffee. I now buy specialty local coffee from Onda and Kuma of Seattle for myself, and grocery store (usually Dunkin or Peet's) for my family since they like creating creamy abominations with it anyway. I'd really love this to be a semi-annual series! Enough time between episodes for there to be a noticeable change in products and perhaps even a little taste bud rehabilitation 😎
I used to get Dunkin' sometimes but the last two times I bought it, it tasted like wood so I stopped. I really like some more expensive coffees I've tried but even ignoring the price, availability is a big issue. I just want a reliable coffee I can buy near me. I was getting Kivu Kona but it has bad batches too often as well
"creamy abominations" ?? Lol. I understand totally. Happily, there are two good micro roasters in my city in Northern California so it's easy to get freshly roasted coffee while supporting local companies. Have you tried Blue Bottle coffees? Their "Bella Donovan" is probably my favorite coffee of all time.
Interesting that you mention the variation - swear I once had a most excellent cup of Hills Bros medium roast, but I was never able to get anything like it in any other can :)
As a Peet’s Coffee fan, I was happy ( and proud of my personal choice of coffee) to see it made the Final Cut, even if by default ! Medium roast however is my go to !
This guy seems like he only drinks elephant poop coffee, but just the poop part. Not a bad thing, just a vibe. Will continue to watch and enjoy this man.
As a Viet American who grew up drinking my dad's Cafe Du Monde that he makes every single day with a phin and some sweetened condensed milk, I found your immediately strong reaction to the chicory hilarious. This whole video was highly entertaining, and I was also very surprised by some of the results. I don't really buy grocery store coffee, but I did enjoy plenty of cups of Philz back when I lived in California. Please keep doing more of these, perhaps with brands from more parts of the world! (I now live in the Netherlands and would love your opinions on what can be found here 😁)
As a Filipino American I was looking for this comment…never in my life have I ever considered drinking it straight!! Even with the condensed milk and full cup of ice it would still kick my ass. 😅
As a former barista at Sbux for 8 years, I went through extensive coffee education (which I don’t think they do so much anymore, having reduced their offerings dramatically since 2016). I found it interesting that you defined Veranda as a medium, when Sbux defines it as a light or “blonde” roast. This was the first time I’ve watched a video on this channel, and I really enjoyed watching you taste and provide your insights. That McCafe made it as far as it did was the one that shocked me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
He's really talking more in the grand scheme of things. It's a light roast relative to other Starbucks roasts, not to all the specialty coffee out there.
@@69nites I came here to say much the same. I quite like dark roast coffee but have a number of friends that describe the majority of SBC as tasting ‘burnt’ to them. So in that context the Veranda is very light. That said I can and have enjoyed a lot of SB coffee but don’t drink it at home or go out of my way to drink it. I’m a subscriber to Peet’s small batch delivery service as my daily but use their Major Dickason’s blend when I run out. I slightly prefer their Big Bang..a medium for them I think but I can’t find it whole bean in my area.
Veranda is the only Starbuck's coffee I enjoy drinking. McCafe, when tried at their restaurant, is hit or miss. When prepared properly, it is totally acceptable. But most of the stores either add too much water, or keep it on the hot plate for one hour before served to you.
Very morning I make a freshly ground pour over for me and a decaf for my spouse. I solely use Peet’s whole beans on line and alter the roasts from Peet’s too. BUT every time I make Peet’s Decaf House Blend, I am SHOCKED how great it tastes and it’s just as enjoyable as most of the caffeinated beans I make for me.
The fuck? Tim's has been trash for years. I loved them growing up but a bit after RBI bought them I started having to skip some stores because it would just be filth water in my cup. That and doughnuts not being made in store anymore. Now if it's not dark roast double double I can't even stomach it. I'm actively trying to give Tim's 0 dollars any given year.
I laughed every time he described it as 'friendly', definitely playing into the trope of friendly, polite Canadians. As for the fact that James didn't enjoy his previous Tim's coffee I can say that I agree. A good Tim's cup of coffee is very good and enjoyable, but not every Tim's cup is a good cup. For some reason the coffee lacks consistency, perhaps not every Tim's filter their water or something, producing a different taste depending which Tim's you buy it.
I have a feeling the ratios James used is way different from what the stores actually brew, since the store brews taste like water with a slight hint of mud.
As a Canadian I'm pleased that Tim Horton's performed comparatively well... also because that's one of the few brands featured here that we even can get in supermarkets here. A Canadian version of this would also have to include a few store brands like Irresistables, No Name, and President's Choice, and for non-store brands, Nabob, Kicking Horse, Melitta, Lavazza, Illy, Ethical Bean, Van Houtte, and Timothy's. I tend to prefer Kicking Horse's darker roasts, like Grizzly Claw or Kick Ass. President's Choice West Coast Dark Roast is, surprisingly, quite good for those who like darker roasts, and is definitely the cheapest decent option.
I find it interesting and a bit funny that his three choices for medium roast coffees were all major chain coffees. His choices for light and dark were both more unique, lesser known brands, but the medium were all things you could grab a cup of on your way to work. :D
I don't think Peet's is particularly underground, at least from my experience it's one of the most popular coffee brands out there and has a lot of shelf space in grocery stores
@@LLsunflower It's not exactly up there at the well known brand name level as Starbucks, Tim Hortons, and Dunkin' Donuts, though, is it? Your not gonna find a "Peet's" chain store all over the place. As a non-coffee drinker, I'm not exactly the authority on well known brands, but those three are well known even outside the realm of coffee connoisseurs.
@MysticJhn Maybe not on tier with those, but I'd put it just below them in terms of how prolific Peet's is in grocery stores. And while they don't have a massive number of locations, they have a pretty decent spread of shops as a franchise. What's interesting to me is that I'm not super familiar with Caribou as a brand, but I've been buying them as my go to grocery store brand very recently (for no particular reason), and there's a pretty decent amount on grocery store shelves in stores near me in Denver.
@@LilBoyHexley Caribou used to be quite heavily present at least in the midwest as early as about 15 years ago or so, it was basically what we had instead of Starbucks at least going by my memories as a kid. Starbucks took over all the old Caribou locations in my old neighborhood as the years went by.
Watching James suffer through tasting my go to grocery store coffees was an absolute treat. He tasted all the brands I used to buy before switching to locally roasted coffees and didn't have much good to say about them. 😂 Of course, I take my coffee with cream and like darker roasts....and maybe I would feel the same as him about them now that I've been drinking locally roasted coffee for a couple of years now.
I got a bag of 8 O'Clock for the first time in a while recently. It was undrinkable. I don't think I'm that picky about coffee, but I guess my tastes have evolved.
To address the Philz controversy: I didn’t realise they weren’t widely available. It was heavily suggested in the Patreon poll to pick the coffees, so I presumed it had decent distinction US-wide. My apologies! I also don’t think I understood the massive grocery variation by region (coming from a small island). Feel free to pick your own winner from the top 4! Regardless - I hope this was a fun video!
It's widely available in California, which is probably why they suggested it. Seems your Patreons skew heavily towards California haha
CANADA eh! 🇨🇦 runner up!😁
Cafe Bustelo is not widely available outside of South Florida (for good reason).
EDIT: I see I was wayyyyy wrong about Bustelo's reach in the US. I had no idea it was available nationwide. Living in Miami and knowing just how bitter it is, I thought it would only work in markets where "coladas" reign supreme.
I wouldn't consider Philz the same category. Philz started as an artisan coffee shop in San Francisco. It grew quickly and is becoming widely distributed. I've seen it across the US major cities. I was even surprised to find a shop open in Chicago.
Never heard of the winner either and i'm in the states (but on the East coast) but don't generally buy coffee from the grocery store. I commonly see New England Coffee though that wasn't represented here.
As a Starbucks employee who hates Pike Place, seeing James wince at a slurp of it is all I’ve ever wanted
I always recommended people get the Veranda blend in its place!
Tasting notes: fish, cigarettes
100% the correct reaction to Pike tbh
@@knickly OMG I swear I smell fish. I’m not alone!
I tried Pike Place years ago and was shocked how bad it was. Not at all pleasant to drink. I agree with James, Veranda Blend is decent.
As I work corporate for one of these manufacturers, I have been waiting for us to be trashed by James for so long :)
well today is your day, you go bask in it, have a prepackaged biscotti to celebrate
Here's some cream, just in case they've run out in the break room.
"i have been waiting for us to be ROASTED by James...'
Out of interest, do you know if the stuff in the retail bags is the same coffee is served in stores?
@@jameshoffmann. Have you tried South Indian filter coffee?
Wait can we just take a moment to admire the beauty of the cut from taste test James to editing James? That was amazing
yeah, went back to rewatch that a few times. so smooth 😂
@@JonNelsonCycling also note that instead of putting the gold play button behind the set to show it off to viewers, this button is in the editing suite. Like it’s a testament to the crew that makes this channel great. I might be reading too much into that, but I choose to believe that this is a classy channel
it really was. that was, I imagine, the aspect of the edit on which they spent the most time, and it was really exceptional.
It really gave a feeling of watching the video with it's author. Loved it.
As a Canadian watching tim horton's make it as far as it did really validates that the employee's in store just don't know how to make coffee
same in most dunkin and mcd's
That's bc the employee don't "make" the coffee. They just put beans in a large coffee maker and press start. It's likely the grocery store product is also different than what's made in much larger amount for the stores and also you have more control over how the coffee is made at home than at the restaurant.
Yeah, as someone who works at Tim Hortons, our coffee to me tastes like battery acid, I have to put butter and half a packet of salt just to drink it, when I don't have time to make my own.
I tried Tim Horton's in Leicester... about a week before UK hit lockdown! I was excited by it. But when I had it, was rubbish. As you say, they just don't know how to make it.
I never seen Timmy’s anywhere in the U.S
I thought it was very funny that he consistently described the Canadian coffee as "friendly" 🍁
Yeah, and it also tastes of apologies, he just didn't pick up on that.
This was shocking! Never thought our "national" 🍁 brand would be the runner up.
@Phillip Banes It's common in the US, even available at Walmart. Much more common in the US than the other featured coffees are here in Canada.
@Phillip Banes You see it everywhere in the northern US(Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, etc)
First time I ever had Tim Hortons was in Niagara, New York.
@Phillip Banes Canadians rock! If you think it's a myth, then the problem is most likely with you LOL.
That venomous "I know what you are" at the chicory imposter was everything! 🤣
as someone who used to drink a lot of grocery store coffee, being whole bean 100% gave phil's a massive advantage
How would store brands like Kroger and Walmart's Great Value compare?
@@truthfortots3288 I don't know about kroger but I would imagine Great Value compares very very poorly. Dunkin is a great cheap whole bean coffee
@@truthfortots3288 I would honestly say that the cheapest whole bean coffee you can find in your local grocery store is going to be better than the most expensive pre-ground coffee you can find. It makes a world of difference.
I have very similar coffee tastes to James, and when I have to buy grocery store coffee, I pretty much always get the whole bean Dunkin.
Yeah, whole bean is always a significant upgrade over anything pre-ground in my experience. The worst cup of whole bean I ever made was kinda stale since I had forgotten about it in my pantry. and you know what? It actually reminded me of how pre-ground coffee tastes
As a Canadian who doesn’t really like Tim’s, I still couldn’t help but shout “that’s my boy!” every time that cup went through
Brazilian owned brand.
It has to be different in the states, or in store they fuck it up because I was waiting for him to tear it apart.
Same!!!
same
@@mussdem I think it's both. I think the stuff in the bags is different by default from the stuff they serve you, and I suspect the blends are slightly adjusted for the differences in palates. The canadian store/resto brew is fully intended to be blended up as a double double.
Wow that meta-edit at 9:07 was one of the smoothest transitions in a youtube video!we all know how excellent your taste in coffee is, but your taste in video production deserves credit too, between this, the brad pitt commercial, and the portable espresso videos, I nominate you for an oscar!
Yesss. I had to rewind several times to enjoy that again and again
I really loved the squarespace promo during the makita coffee maker episode. It was fantastic
Totally agree.
I also appreciate when they get their horizontal lines perfectly straight.
Though they did miss applying the color/log adjustment @10:58
I indeed rewinded a couple of times... awesome edit!
That edit was Satoshi Kon level. Seriously!
As a person who hates acidic coffee, i appreciate you explaining the flavor profiles and not just saying good or bad
Same. I like roasty coffee. I hate acidic coffee
It's also helpful for me as an absolute freak who loves acidic coffee
Lol, hey somebody has to like it!
Same I hate acidic, also hate bitter, would prefer sweet and creamy and medium to full bodied all the way
@@mandywaynick8725which one do you pick I’m sort of in the middle as well
I understand James' astonishment about Tim Hortons. I swear, they CANNOT be using their own coffee at their chain locations.
Yes they use their coffee, what I found on my trips to Olean , NY for work was this. If you order a large doubledouble you get the best ever cup of coffee, IMHO. But one morning on the way to work and a stop for a Lrg dbldbl, they said they were out of creamer and would put the creamer and sugar in the bag. No issue right? Wrong, mixed up a dbl dbl with what they gave me and guess what........................just a mediocre cup of cofffee. It's the creamer and 10 years later I still can't find out or mix things to make it taste so good.
The problem with Tim's coffee is that they burn the ever living hell out of it in the stores.
Tim Horton's changed their coffee supplier years ago. I notice that the label on the coffee in this video said "Original Tim Horton's" (or something like that), suggesting that it is indeed the old variety and not the new variety served in the shops. According to a quick google, the old supplier is now the source for McDonald's, which helps explain why McD's now tastes so much better than I remember in my youth.
I've had to buy Tim' ground coffee in the store before, I found it quite different brewed at home.
@@mjdryden I suppose it would taste OK there if you got it fresh out of the coffee maker.
Your quarter finals match up between Tim Hortons and McDonald's was by far the most interesting to me! Up here in Canada, it's like mythology at this point that Tim's always had the best 'fast food' coffee, and maybe 10 years ago McDonald's stole their coffee supplier and Tim's had to get a new one, which wasn't as good. I myself still prefer McDonald's coffee for something cheap and quick on the go (other than Starbucks Blonde roasts), but it was really cool seeing you taste each head to head!
Came here to say this
They could also be using entirely different suppliers in the USA vs Canada
The new Tim's roasting plant opened in Hamilton in 2009.
As a fellow Canadian, I think what I've come to is that it's very store dependent. McDonalds is always been quite a decent cup, but Tim's can vary from incredible to the worst, most sour thing, just by travelling half a km.
I've never liked Tim's (or McDonald's) in their places, but interesting to learn here that the coffee itself is decent. I just feel like how they brew and store it doesn't help it out in the stores.
This video was surprisingly touching for me! I used to watch my mother drink Eight O’Clock coffee, but I remember it being quite bitter since I was so young. Now, as an adult, I drink Starbucks Veranda. To hear they’re so similar and I accidentally grew into my mother’s taste makes me feel very close to her. I should probably give Eight O’Clock another shot!
When money is tight, Eight O'Clock is a good choice. It is best if you buy whole bean.
Eight o'clock is my choice because I was raised on it. Only the A&P grocery store sold it back in the day and when A&P closed their stores eight o'clock went on the market to all grocery stores to sell... so glad or it would have been history.
Did you give it another chance? How was it? 😄
@@efglux2425 yes eighth o clock now owned by Indian tea company
All I can say about Veranda is it tastes less burnt than the other Starbucks offerings.
I was a barista for a couple of years at Philz. They trained us to push Tesora on new customers, but I always recommended Silken Splendor instead. Looks like my personal taste checked out!
Silken Splendor and the Turkish were always my go to at Philz.
Tesora is what I had the first few times...very interesting that it's "pushed"
Same! Always been a Silken Guy! But as a Canadian living in the Bay, I'm happy to know that Timmies is a close second!
I personally gravitated toward Philtered Soul, but maybe I should give Silken Splendor a try.
I've personally never understood the appeal of Tesora in the bay area -- though I guess it fits with the "you might like really dark coffee" bit
Seeing Timmy get how far it did is encouraging. I use their whole bean as my daily driver and I absolutely love it.
Trader Joe’s, a smaller novelty grocery store has many, many coffees, which I think are mostly theirs. I would love to see you do taste testing on those! I enjoyed this taste test. Thanks!
Their organic breakfast blend is great.
I’ve never heard it described as a ‘novelty’ grocery before but I guess that’s a way to describe the fact they rotate items quite often?
Their coffee is quite nice.
They do have great coffees, AND you can grind it right in the store.
Yep. Trader Joe's does a great job with their coffees.
When I worked for Starbucks, we were allowed to take home a free bag of beans every week, and Veranda blend was basically the only coffee I drank for about 3 years because of that. It’s surprisingly drinkable, all things considered. James’s face on tasting the Pike Place roast definitely brought back memories though.
I've noticed that comparing those two blends goes the same in store vs buying beans/grounds. Veranda is just a better cup either way
When I used to drink the office coffee, my choices were generally either that Peet's Major Dickason's Blend, or Starbuck's Pike's Place.
This is what eventually forced me into bringing my own coffee into the office.
I'm a dark roast kinda guy and to me Starbucks doesn't exist not because they don't exist but because most other dark beans give more flavor.
People actually drink Starbucks crap. They arrived in Sweden, being confident and just closed all their locations because European people actually like good coffee.
Yeah, I currently work for starbucks and thought pike place just tasted like that cause it was sitting in the urn for ages. Decided to take it as my markout one week, and nope, turns out it just tastes like that. It's a shame we don't have veranda here in the uk.
The big Italian supermarket brands like Lavazza, Illy, Segafredeo etc. would be great to compare and test.
Yes Europeans coffee would be great
hell yeah
He did a UK version of this video that included Illy and Lavazza :)
@@cm4688 Do you remember what it was called? I haven't been able to find it.
@@archaeopteris I checked. They're part of the Supermarket Instant Coffee video. Hoping he'll do one for the beans soon too.
I would love to see another update to this, maybe one around the holidays to celebrate the year anniversary of this video.
Thank you James for the amazing content and the great time your provide to all your fans and fellow coffee lovers.
Found it very impressive how consistent your choices were. Basically every head to head was guessable. Your ability to distinguish profiles and judge the quality is really impressive.
As a Canadian, the Tim's and Dons matchup was absolutely thrilling
I was on the edge of my seat.
Sorry
I think James should have had the Tim Hortons on the counter at the end with a smaller sized Canadian flag next to it. Then he should have apologized in kinsmanship.
I was shocked that Tim's did so well. They must do something tragically wrong to it in the stores. Like he said in the video too, I've haven't enjoyed their coffee from the store either
It was like re-living an Olympic gold medal hockey game vs the USA.
I’ve long said that Dunkin’s original blend is some of the best of the basic coffees you can get from a grocery store, and now I am so glad that you have affirmed that.
same here and the dunkin decafe is very good too imo
It would have won if he used whole beans such as Philz 😢
Many decades ago the Dunkin Donuts was the best. Somehow and why they changed it several years ago. It is not the same as it was 45 years ago. Just saying.
TLDR; You can get close to making it taste the same at home, but not quite.
I have tried my best to replicate the taste of Dunkin's hot coffee original, made regular at home and I can't get it right, but close:
1) Bought a BUNN Commercial VP-17 coffee maker. Same brand and brew method as in the stores, just smaller. Water at 200 degrees, fast pour-over brew style.
2) Bought whole beans in store.
3) Filtered water.
4) I've heard it's between 3 and 3.5 ounces of coffee per 64 ounce pot, so I tried 3.25oz of coffee for 64 ounces of water.
5) Ground the coffee coarse, like they do.
6) A medium regular has 45ml of light cream (1.5 ounces or 3 tablespoons NOT half-n-half), and 3 sugars (3 teaspoons). I put that in mine, then topped it with coffee until getting to 14 fluid ounces total (dunks medium hot size).
It tastes very good and is close, but the aroma and taste is not the same. Further research suggests that the dunks beans sold in grocery store and in their own coffee shops are not the same sourced beans that they make their coffee with. Also the beans they make the coffee with are very freshly roasted (no more than 3 days old).
just tried it myself and after years of not enjoying Dunkin's in-house coffee, I gotta say: can confirm! it's downright delightful.
As someone of cuban descent that lives in a highly Cuban populated area, I will say that for cafe bustelo, it’s typically used in cafe cubano. I’m unsure of what brewing methods you used, but we use a moka pot to brew our coffee instead of something like an American coffee pot. It’s also consumed with sugar that’s been whipped with the first drops of concentrated coffee to create the espumita (sweet foam). Cafe bustelo (as well as Pilon and Las Llaves) are a little more finely ground than their more American counterparts to create a more concentrated brew. I’m not saying you’re wrong for judging them all the same, but I have a feeling that like cafe bustelo, some of the other coffees you might not have liked may have been manufactured with different brewing methods in mind.
I drink cafe bustelo at home as a pour over and i like it. I prefer my brewed coffee at home better then when i buy coffee on the road/restaurant here in the 🇺🇸
I use it in my espresso machine. It’s my daily driver
I agree 100% with you. I was introduced to Café Bustelo 25 years ago by a fellow teacher who is Guatemalan. My 1st taste blew me away with the flavour. She taught me how to correctly brew it in Moka pot. Today, I still have that same Moka pot and still drinking Café Bustelo with gusto. I do also drink Café du Monde coffee on alternate days. Just love that jolting flavor of the chicory.
PR and bustelo all day haha or cafe Rico. But hard to find. In my moka pot My FIL gave us his on his first visit.
I don't drink coffee. I watch this channel because it's such a pleasure to see someone take such pleasure in all the particularities of his "hobby". (and the good hair!)
the fact that you described tim horton's coffee as "friendly" consistently makes me happy as a canadian
Do you buy the Tim’s coffee from the store and the restaurant? Are they the same?
@@STEVEARABIA1 marginally different and depends heavily on the location. I find a good tim hortons that cleans the machines properly and cares abiut the customers will have better coffee in store. Where as a shitty tim hortons in a mall where they have "too much" traffic to clean as often tastes like wet socks after being burnt on a firepit. Whereas the home grounds are cobtrolled to how you woukd prefer brewing it.
That coffee will always say "sorry."
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 You mean "sorey."
@@mikeslovak5589 oh ok. Good point. I've only tried Timmies a few times and hated it. It was at the busy locations though.
It's interesting to see that each of the major coffee house chains (Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Dunkin) got at least one through to the semifinals
It's good to know that they don't skimp out on quality beans though. How good their baristas are, that could be a different story.
Except for Seattles best.
All the final choices were chains. I've had coffee (and been underwhelmed) at all of them except Timmy's.
@@lizcademy4809 Yeah, being underwhelmed is kind of the default with chains. They'll always favor sameness and repeatability over excitement.
@@lonestarr1490 Tbf, they are totally right about that. The people who watch this channel have a pretty big bias toward excitement, novelty and how do coffee compare. While most people consuming coffee just want a standard good cup to start their day, not a nuanced interisting taste experience every morning. I say that as someone who only likes coffee for the taste experience, I can't drink much cafeine daily sadly :/
I had no idea how much I needed this video in my life. You are a magnificent coffee nerd and I’m loving these videos.
I think you should do a comparison light roast only, medium roast only and dark roast only. I think that would be a more fair comparison especially since you favor light roast, your natural bias will always tend make it impossible for a dark roast to come out on top! Additionally some people like me prefer dark roast and would like your opinion on the best dark roast!
I was never much of a coffee person until I started watching James Hoffmann, who I found via his collab with Tom Scott. I was _sure_ after bingeing his channel that I'd be an interesting, fruity, acidic, complex light-coffee person, like he is. Totally certain!
So, on his recommendation, being a very poor person who can't even fathom spending a thousand dollars or more on an espresso setup, or even a few hundred on a good grinder for pourovers, I got a subscription to Cometeer, figuring they'd do better than I could anyway.
Lo and behold, I hated every single light roast they sent me the first month. The mediums were "fine". But the dark roasts... oh my god, they're like magic! To be fair, I like lattes and cappuccinos, and without the milk and Splenda to mellow them out, most (but not all) of the darks are too bitter for me. I almost exclusively drink iced coffee here in Arizona, and I do add _more_ milk and sweetener for the darker roasts, but there's something magical that happens when bringing up a really developed roast that just isn't there with the mediums.
Anyway, point being... at first, I, too, wished James would give his recommendations on the best dark roast, but then I had an epiphany. Why on Earth would I want _that?_ That would be like asking an off-road rock crawling enthusiast what the best track race car is. Being steeped in the car world in general, they might have _some_ more knowledge than a random person off the street, but it's going to be inherently biased.
So I decided if I want recommendations on darker roasts, I needed to find me a coffee expert who _likes_ medium and dark roasts. That lead me to Morgan Drinks Coffee, and honestly I love them both, so I couldn't be happier!
@@living-wellon-less5669 Thanks! However, I probably won't get into roasting my own... I'm disabled, and am mostly looking for very portable, small-footprint setups that I can keep in my office where I spend most of my time, rather than going out to the kitchen. I'm looking into an Aeropress, a stand-alone milk foamer, and a decent hand-grinder at the moment (I already have a really nice pourover kettle I use to melt my Cometeer).
Gonna ask for some of it for Christmas, and then I'll fill in the blanks myself, and I think I can get a decent-ish setup for hopefully around $200.
So much respect for you my friend. I like your politeness even though you are criticizing him. We need this kind of attitude on the internet.
@@gorodgorod9584 Me, or Living-well on-less?
Exactly there are two people in the world Light Roast and Dark roast. We tolerate medium lol
While I work at Starbucks, we did little coffee tastings where corporate would pair coffees and pastries or we would just taste the different blends and try and distinguish notes. I swear to God, every time Pike Place was in the tasting, we would all become super quiet and awkward about it with our manager. We were all terrified to say that it is one of the worst-tasting coffee blends ever, since its the primary blend used during the afternoon & is supposed to be their "famous" blend lol
First time I tried Starbuck's in the store, I returned to the counter wanting a different cup because it tasted so horrible, I thought it was bad, for some reason. No fancy latte, cream, frosting or anything, just a regular brew with sugar.
Not to trash Starbucks, but I have given it second and third chances, at different locations and every time it tastes like an old man's smoking pipe. Like he emptied his ashes into the coffee - that's the only way I can describe the taste.
Later, I heard a rumor that Starbuck's intentionally burns the beans. In who's world is that a good thing, if true?
Dawn, have you ever heard of a similar complaint? Curious if it's just my taste and preference, or if I'm on the right track calling this?
@SomebodysPapa I have no idea if the beans are burnt intentionally or not. We didn't roast them in store. They were shipped to us in giant bags lol all I know is that it tastes awful. The cigarette ashes taste is spot on. If you want to get a good brew from Starbucks, you have to go early enough to get something other than Pike Place. Veranda is good imo, and the Christmas Blend during the holidays is super nice as well.
@@amethystdawn Ok, thanks for the reply! I'll try the Veranda next time! Glad someone else can taste the same ash flavor too.
😂 I wondered why they always act surprised when I order a "Grande Pike, no room" at Starbucks! 😂
I kinda like it😂
I love that he describes the coffees as vegetables. When I couldn't taste from COVID, I kept saying coffee tasted like can vegetable water.
I only saw the thumbnail for this. I’m from Texas, and I can tell that this person is not just bc I don’t see Cafe Ole in the thumbnail. It’s the store brand for H‑E‑B, the greatest and best grocery store on the planet. They have the best coffee and you can even grind it right in the store and bag it yourself.
I would absolutely watch this as a recurring series!
I've never seen James Hoffman express as much energy as he does exclaiming, "Tim Horton's!"
NO WAY
Tim Hortons eh
Peet’s Major D had always been my go to Grocery store brand. Though I usually buy whole bean. It broke my heart when he eliminated it initially, but then, by some type of divine intervention, he corrected himself, and then it showed up at the end! ❤
Major Dickason is very popular at my local grocery, and as Peet's actually prints roast date on the bag, I can purchase it within a month or so of roasting. It's a good daily driver, and often on sale.
Same here! I think it holds up to cream and sugar well, being so dark. Definitely suitable for a big American cup of joe.
Major D’s is my favorite too! Whole bean only.
@@fronthole_guacamole He has a wife, you know...
Major D is my daily cup, love it black. I find it chocolatey and sweet. Certainly there are bitter notes, but I like the contrasts.
I also don't eat carbs or sweets, so it might be I'm more sensitive. The other night I tasted some sphagetti sauce (not store bought, no added sugar) and was immediately hit by hiw sweet it was.
Absolutely amazing video and comparison! Please do more of this for local stores brands like Trader’s Joe
All trader Joe's coffee tastes like soap
As a Louisiana native, the Cafe du Monde reaction was PERFECT. Working in New Orleans for many years, I think I’ve had black chicory coffee requested once. It is basically always served as Cafe au Lait (milk coffee). If you’re lucky, there are beignets involved and the bitter, smoky chicory stands up against the fried dough and mountain of powdered sugar.
Lol Lousiana native as well. As soon as I saw that pop up, I knew what was about to happen.
Not a LA native, but I love chicory coffee HOWEVER it is the only brewed coffee I don't drink black. I always add milk and a bit of sugar to it.
Fellow Louisiana native. I totally agree with you, although I was a bit surprised that he picked Starbucks over Community. Neither are great coffees, I always buy local whole bean when I can, but I never thought that a blind test would be that close between those two in particular.
@@beunice I actually like Community. Its my daily drinker because its decent tasting and cheap here in Louisiana.
I’ve seen a few Thai iced coffee that prefer to use cafe du monde as the base.
I laughed my ass off at the thought of the Tim Horton's winning and James sticking the American flag next to it at the end
Actually Tim Horton's is Brazilian (3G Capital) disguised as Canadian since about 2015.
@@cac2244 nah it's still Canadian, just owned by Brazilians.
@@cac2244 please!!! Saying that to a Canadian is like telling Argentinians that Lionel Messi is French.
My family in Michigan drinks Tim Horton. You can't get the bags in all grocery stores, it's kind of tricky in Wisconsin to find it, but it's a brand found in American grocery stores. Other than Hawaiian beans, all coffee isn't from America anyway.
Well Philz' won , not Tim Horton. Philz is indeed American
You might find it interesting that Tim Hortons and McCafe are roasted by the same company. The husband of one of my coworkers is the district manager for Tim Hortons in Western New York and used to be the same for McDonald's just north in Ontario and she brought this up in a previous conversation about coffee. I greatly enjoyed this video!
That is interesting! It seems like the type of thing that wouldn't bother a McCafe drinker but might bother a Tim Hortons drinker.
I’m guessing out of the Rochester plant? Just curious, grew up in that area.
McCafe was quite good when they used to have a higher portion of coffee in their lattes. Now they water it down with milk.
@@ZM-jb6gc This is a local choice by your specific nearest McDonalds restaurant, tho. Some MsDonalds restaurants haven't changed their coffee proportions even thru the pandemic
That is pretty interesting. Since you said in Western New York, you may know what this is. Jamacian Me Crazy and Witches Brew are the same thing; and both terrible.
I'm very grateful for this video, thank you so much!! Exactly what I was looking for.
The Netherlands has a huge coffee culture, with many old Dutch brands. It would be very interesting to see a tasting of those coffee's, i.e. Douwe Egberts, Kanis en Gunnink, Max Havelaar, etc.
Douwe Egberts is kinda popular in the USA as well.
It seems that Gevalia (a Swedish roaster and not one of my favourites) is owned by Douwe Egberts.
We get Douwe Egberts here in Aus too. I'm not sure how widespread they are now but they used to be common in my childhood
I believe the founder of Peet's
Coffee was from the Netherlands.
Absolutely loved the fact that Tim hortons and Dunkin’ went head to head as I feel like those are the two breakfast/donut places that have cult followings. Reminds me of the Sheetz vs Wawa rivalry.
I didn't even think about it, but those two totally do have cult followings! I was indoctrinated into the Cult of Dunkin and I wouldn't want it any other way XD
Well said!
ugh, sheetz doesn't compare to wawa, maybe sheetz vs. turkey hill
Never had Tim Horton's (I think it's a Canadian chain?), but I really like Dunkin' Donuts out of all coffee I can get at the grocery store. So I almost always have it on hand for a brew.
I was waiting through the rest of the video for this match-up.
It’s so funny that you described Tim Horton as “friendly” multiple times! James, maybe you could do a world tour of grocery coffee.
Happy to see that 3 out of 5 of his recommendations what I typically drink when I want a light, medium or dark roast.
I loved this, would love to see Australian, New Zealand, UK etc versions of this
Seconded. Also UK / Continental / Japanese / Korean. Would be a wonderful way to get a sense of different coffee cultures.
And dont forget african and indian
He has done UK you may have to dig to find it but it’s equally a great watch!
As a Canadian, I was weirdly proud of how far Tim Hortons went compared to the other popular brands even though I rarely go to Tim's xD
Same! I am in no way patriotic but I got very excited when Tim's made it so far
tims coffee used to be so good before they sold thier soul to a american company. its honestly pretty bad now. but still pretty cool
Same!! I also found it amusing when he described the Tim Hortons coffee as "friendly" several times during the tasting. Even our coffee ascribes to the stereotype! ☺️☕🇨🇦
We have some here in Spain and I have never been in one. I guess I'll try it the next time I'm in Madrid.
@@lialowe266 I was thinking the same thing! Haha! We would have hit Canadian coffee bingo if he had referred to it as “polite” at any point!
I live in Italy and I don't know any of these brands. What I find extremely interesting is that, in the first round, on many occasions the more expensive, sometimes way more expensive coffee was eliminated straight away when confronted with a much cheaper competitor. This shows how cost does not necessarily relate with our own personal taste, and one doesn't necessarily get more when one pays more. I find this to be very true also in other fields such as beer, gin and vodka.
A lot of that has to do with his personal preference for lighter roasts, I think. The cheaper, more readily available stuff tends to be of lighter roasts.
@@TheCyberspaceCowboy more like they like local and fresh roasted coffee which wonton come from a big brand name.
I work for an Italian company and they provide free coffee from Lavazza. I think it's OK, not bad, but prefer a brand called Intelligentia that is brewed in Chicago
Lavazza is what I buy. Because it's the best in store. I don't see it here.
People prefer flavour profiles they are familiar with. Specialty coffee might be too acidic or may have flavour notes they aren't used to
Ah! Very happy to find Major Dickason's was the pick for dark roast, as someone who has only tried a few different coffees at that roast and settled on that! I had switched from Caribou's Mahogany to Peet's, especially since there was a water-process decaf version of Peet's, and both I and my dad thought it was a big improvement over Mahogany **even** as a decaf. Will happily continue buying that!
I haven't looked through the channel enough yet, but I'd be very interested in a decaf tournament if there isn't already one! I love coffee, but day-to-day it's just better for the ol' blood pressure to keep it decaf :)
Including beans vs pre-ground seems like a GIANT confounding factor
That surprised me as well. IMO it already had a step up because of that
Yeah I'd say the big takeaway for me is that grinding your own of any kind might be better than pre-ground of any kind.
If all the packages were freshly opened right before the tasting (and I see no reason to suspect otherwise), it really doesn't make that much of a difference. The real issue with pre-ground coffee is that it stales so much faster, like within days after breaking the seal.
(Also, did he say some of them were pre-ground? I thought what he said was that the winning brand was the only one that doesn't sell pre-ground. That doesn't imply that all the other ones were pre-ground.)
Especially when a lot of the brands sell beans as well. I think another video with all fresh ground would be interesting
From what I see on the store shelves. In the states the ground to whole bean ratio sold is about 50-50 and there is little in the way of instant sold at all. The verity of K cups is huge though. It has replaced the instant I suspect. I see he left the Costco, Sam's and the other big house brands off this list. maybe he cant get it? I don't think I have seen Phil's in the local Food Lion. BTW I always use whole bean.
I'm surprised how emotionally invested I got when it was Tim Hortons vs Dunkin. Even though DD lost I think that's the most patriotic I've felt in decades.
Dunkin’ forever! Coffee Regular baybeee!
Repent to Jesus Christ “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
Colossians 3:2 NIV
ht
“O CANADA, WE STAND ON GUARD FOR THEE” 🍁🍁🍁🍁 🇨🇦
Here near the Canadian border, that's all the coffee we have: Tim's and Dunkin. I think he picked correctly, but it's definitely a personal preference! 😅
HA ha!
Cafe Bustello has been my go to for a VERY long time. I’ve tried every single one of these. I enjoy the dirt dark super toasty taste though.
I imagine it's the only one here that stands up to a moka pot lol
For espresso roasts, I prefer Pilon to Cafe Bustello but when I poll others, I’m in the minority.
I like CB a lot too even though I prefer medium roast. It’s tastes so smooth and flavorful to me. I was surprised to see him cringe after tasting it both times lol.
EDIT: now two months after drinking mostly specialty coffee, I can’t stand Bustello anymore lol
Same here gives the best energy
I would love to see this head to head again but with Lavazza and La Columbe coffee included! I love Lavazza coffee the best as far as grocery coffee goes, but La Columbe is getting some traction here in the US as well. Also, I am so happy to not be the only one that thinks Pikes coffee tastes like trash and am so surprised Dunkin was a top contender!
LaVazza is absolutely the best widely available coffee, and it's got nothing to do with my being Italian
As a New Englander with Canadian relatives, Dunkins vs Tim Hortons felt like when the Canadiens play the Bruins, I wasn't sure which way I should be cheering!
The never-ending war between New Yokers and New Englanders over coffee preference.
Nowadays, Dunkin's basic coffee is overpriced and if I do buy it, it's usually in frozen coffee drinks or the occasional $1 coffee special in the app.
Many of these are available as whole beans. I’d love to see a remake with only the whole bean versions. Tip: 8 O’clock puts the roasting date on the bag. Get the freshest. If your favorite brand doesn’t have a roasting date, pick the bag with less air space. Air means old beans.
I definitely think Seattle's Best would fare better as whole bean. Their ground coffee has an abnormally fine grind and that makes it bitter.
@@pilotcriticI have been buying Seattle’s Best for a few years now and have been tasting a decline of flavor! I just read that Starbucks sold it to Nestle! Well I need to find a new coffee!
For the longest time, you could grind the 8 O'clock right in the store. That was my mom's favorite - and boy did that aisle of the store smell amazing.
@@jeandiatasmith4512 Brings back great memories, my friend.
@@jeandiatasmith4512same, what wonderful times.
I now get whole bean 8 o’clock and grind at home. It’s definitely better than preground
Philz is the reason I have become a weird coffee person. They are more known for their mixed coffee drinks, but they do a pour over for every drink in their cafes and list the flavor profiles of all their roasts.
Yes such an interesting place. Amazed he had it here.
Me too. I worked next to one and Julie's Ultimate converted me.
I've never heard of this brand before I thought I had tried all the grocery store coffees we have. Where are you in the US? Like is it a west coast thing or something like that?
Philz is my favorite coffee. But nothing beats it made fresh in the Cafe. Pour over heaven. I miss it since I moved away from SF and I'm not driving 30 min to Sacramento for a cup. Well......maybe I will some weekday...I miss it that much.
@@Cordelia0704p Yeah, Philz is big in California and evidently nowhere else (though someone on here mentioned a location in Chicago)
Yes please make more videos like this. If you could do one on better coffee form whole beans and even some organic coffees.
James Hoffmann: Has never tried Folgers
Also James Hoffman: Has tried several almost century old coffees.
So he’s basically already had Folgers
That's because it's not sold in the UK
@Jack Spearman 😆👌 I've never appreciated anything from Folgers either haha . They even sometimes give free coffee away at work and I always know if it's folgers.
Folgers , one of the burnt roasted coffees along with hills brothers and maxwell house. You could see the his pain.
@@Ambrosianite I once got some Folgers on reduction from an American sweet shop who were closing my local branch, and it was pretty instant regret - just tasted totally burnt, whether I used filter or Aeropress
As a worker for one of the major coffee brands here I've been hoping James would talk about it more. I love the coffee we have and we even do tastings in store so we can understand our own coffee better but we never really talk about our coffee vs other coffee so I've been wanting a more expert opinion about it for a while.
Super excited you're trying the major grocery store brands from our side of the pond! Thank you for all the great content; we appreciate you!
I live in California and went to a Philz cafe recently for the first time and it really impressed me how good their coffee was. After watching this I'm absolutely picking up some of their beans to try at home. Our current day to day staple is the starbucks pike place
One good thing to know is that Philz charges $20 per pound of coffee in their stores yet you can buy it at Safeway for 13.99
@HorizonMelt I'm assuming the stores is more fresh than the grocery one
@@cheder6Hmm. Hard to say. I'll look at the bags next time I'm in either place to see the roasting date.
Your videos , tutorials and professional insights as combo are enlightening and I appreciated all videos so far you did. Thanks for being you and making this awesome content 😊. Would love to see more of those and maybe comparison of different countries 😊
Impressive that McDonald's, Dunkin, Tim Horton's, and Starbucks all made it to the quarterfinals. Very impressive on all of their parts.
I’m surprised too. But come to think of it they are designing “least offensive coffees” on purpose, so I guess it could make sense. Their game is consistency.
Also their scale of operations probably allows for a lot of investment in consistency of the product.
They probably have a HUUUGE research&develop team behind all those coffes, going through all kinds of different test groups to find the one that upsets the least amount of people. Especially McDonalds with their McCafe nowadays kinda wants to sell the coffeeshop vibe and back it up with okayish coffee.
they have the most money to do tasting research
His reaction to Pikes place 🤣🤣🤣🤣I agree!!
Anyone else pleased that he called the Canadian coffee “Friendly”? Lol, love it
YES! I knew this one Canuck, OMG, he was the complete opposite of friendly and it was then that I realized....🤔
Lmao…. Me too! I laugh so hard when Tim made it so far. :))))
@@David_Watts... that he was actually an American?
Actually, the word "boring" comes to mind first!
Canadians are less and less seen as "friendly" and increasingly as "nuts", tho.
I really hope you test Trader Joe's different coffees at some point as these are the main source of my homebrews. I ONLY add liquid stevia to my cups, so there is always that little bit of stevia taste in every coffee I try. I believe I should have a "weird coffee (and stevia) person" shirt. LOL Love your channel, keep up your good work.
Yeah I think that Philz coffee had an unfair advantage because it’s obviously a local whole bean roast, and was thus far fresher and better than all the blends. Not really a “grocery store coffee” there.
But I think it does make the point that the best grocery store coffee experience you’re likely to have is something locally produced and whole-bean. That’s been my experience where I currently live in Colorado, for sure.
@yumitemple3507 That’s a great question! My favorites at the moment would probably be…. Ozo coffee, specifically their Isabelle espresso blend year round and whatever their seasonal blend is. I was really obsessed with their “Cozy Cabin” blend over the winter, and hope they bring it back.
Huck Coffee is another great local local micro-roaster I’ve had good experiences with. Also this new local brand of coffee called “Drive” packaged in gas cans has shown up at King Soopers lately and I’ve tried their Baja and LeMans blends with positive results.
In the western US, there's a regional no-frills grocer called Winco Foods, and they sell private label coffee in bulk for $8 a pound. It's roasted in Portland OR, which is where I live, and moves fairly quick, so I've found it's one of if not the most reliable ways for me to get good whole bean coffee locally.
Philz may have, but it's some of the best coffee I've had.
Philz are now placed in Grocery stores in CA - thankfully. It’s far superior coffee than most but is not priced at a premium vs. the higher end domestic or imported Italians. Philz Silky Splendor priced against regular (aka not very good) grocery brands like Folgers its $4-5 p/12oz more expensive
I recently found Philz coffee at my local target and decided to try it because of this video. Best cup I've had in years, even compared to "artisan" coffee shops.
Worked at Philz for 5 years and can definitely say that the coffee is different. Each blend of coffee has 2-7 roasts of beans all sourced from around the world. Each bean is roasted to the correct profile and then blended together creating each unique coffee blend. When visiting a store you are presented with a very full-bodied cup of coffee that is crafted one cup at a time via a special Philz version of pour over.
I'm just glad Dunkin made a good showing. I know that in store it's kind of a different taste in the northeast vs the rest of the US, but my grandmother moved down south like 20 years ago and I think she cried when her local grocery store started selling the Dunkin bags.
As someone who lives very close to the original Philz I am so happy to see they won. They are a sf based and family owned company with an amazing history and story. The father who started it all is the kindest person you will ever meet, from the one original location and even as they expanded and grew the business he would still come in to the different locations and get behind the counter and make your coffee or sit and talk with you. They do make some amazing coffees that are so flavorful and robust and they do all of their coffee ground to order and served in the pour over manner. Again I’m so happy for them for winning
As someone who had worked for Philz for years, their coffee is best made yourself. The pour-over method used at the actual stores is aggressive and there's a lot of inconsistency cup-to-cup. Doing it yourself results in much better results! I miss the single-origin blends. Phil is incredibly nice although it's sad to see how Jacob and upper management treat their stores and employees.
@@roanlo1213 I 100% agree. I was so surprised to witness Philz's baristas dump water into their pour-overs.
Back when I worked in the industry I'd hear so much about Philz. They have an extremely loyal following.
@@roanlo1213 Interesting. I'd still take a freshly brewed if inconsistent cup from Philz any day compared to whatever is in the drip machines at Starbucks or Peet's, and honestly I'd take it over a lot of the other pour-overs and such that I've had too. I do buy Philz beans for aeropress at home, but I've just always thought their in-store cups were a real treat.
@@roanlo1213 For me I think its more like getting a cup at Philz is just different from at home, different brewing method and tastes of how its done so its fun variety. Plus while there are tons of even better smaller coffee shops around the Bay Area they’re still just a very reliable choice if they’re nearby.
I'm American, and was looking forward to something like this. Peet's is my favorite here in the bay area so it was nice to see them in the race at all. Please keep doing more american coffee stuff.
I just wanna give props to Dunkin for always having batch brew filter on whenever I go. Starbucks batch brew filter is quickly becoming the new McDonalds milkshake machine in that they rarely have it on, and when asked they say it’s ‘being cleaned / broken’
What does this mean?
@@StucklnAWell I think he just means the regular coffee machine isn't being used. I'm experiencing this too. They always look around like you asked if their coworker might be on break, like they haven't answered that 28 times already. They USED to go whoops and start a batch, not anymore.
The point is double, to save money because most people are there for the coffee-flavored milkshakes anyway, and to drive the few remaining actual coffee drinkers to expensive alternatives. I'm usually okay with the more expensive pour-over drip coffee.
Andy I hear you but I will ALWAYS pick a starbucks pourover over a DD. I just have a personal distaste for DD, always tastes like peanut oil and napkins to me.
@@StucklnAWell check out the McDonald's milk shake machine scandal and you'll understand
I work at a Starbucks and we stop doing the brewed dark and blonde in the afternoon because it doesn't sell as much. You can ask for a pour over of any kind if you don't mind a wait. I do recommend going inside to get a pour over.
@@SmolPotatowo That makes total sense but I've been running into it in the morning in some places. Like inside a target on a weekend morning.
Very interesting and couldn't help but snicker and giggle at some of your facial expressions 😂. Thanks for this comparison
The most impressive thing about this is his ability to keep the sip sound consistent in tone and duration
Imagine if it gotten longer every slurp
Sounds like im zipping my jacket
He looks lesbian
It's such a pretentious obnoxious practice. As wonky as wine sommelier
I was devoted to Dunkin's original coffee until James taught me the virtues of freshly ground coffee. Nice to know I wasn't too hopeless back then.
I've been able to find Dunkin' in bean form at Kroger and Tom Thumb (part of Albertson's). I live not too far from a local coffee roaster, but if all else fails I will drink Dunkin'.
You can get Dunkin whole beans...
@@iocat I’ve not seen it in Alaska yet but I’ll keep looking. Thanks!
I love Dunkin coffee, AT Dunkin Donuts, but their bagged coffee definitely doesn't taste anywhere near as good, or even similar. Folgers Black Silk for me, I don't do any grinding or fancy brewing, I'm entirely too lazy for that, but I'd actually like to get into it, just don't know if I ever will 🤣
@@johnnygeorgopoulos4072 Part of being lazy is clean-up, and tbh if you're just doing drip / pour over / immersion (french press, clever dripper) which are all pretty quick and easy, a good hand grinder takes very little time for the reward and is insanely easy to clean-up (barely any effort). Whereas a nice electric grinder is more expensive and more work to clean since they retain more at lower price points. I've converted a lot of lazy friends into grinding their own coffee once they taste it and just use a simple Clever dripper since clean up is literally "toss filter in garbage/compost."
I’m not a sophisticated coffee drinker, but I drink it black and prefer light to medium roast. Whenever I’m traveling and grab a quick convenient cup of McCafe, from the drive through, I find myself surprised about half way through and muttering “not a bad cup of coffee”. I have been mocked by others for sharing this, but watching the McCafe get mildly positive feedback was hugely satisfying and weirdly therapeutic for me.
I honestly find it to be the best of the fast food coffees.
Definitely the best fast food drive thru black coffee
Funnily enough, Economic Ninja (YT channel) also raves about McDonald's coffee which I always thought was weird until I kept seeing people like you comment otherwise. I guess I need to give it a shot, haha.
I love Chock Full o Nuts. It’s cheap, smooth, and rich. It also comes in a metal can which means I have lots of free cans to use for stuff.
Oh and it blends well with other coffee.
I've tried CFoN regular, New York Roast and Columbian. I prefer Columbian.
I've tried CFoN regular, New York Roast and Columbian. I prefer Columbian.
Another fan of Chock full o' nuts here but I in a place it's not available here. My favorite coffee of all time was Gevalia Costa Rica Peaberry
The coffee that was the WORST THING EVER was Jamaica Blue Mountain
As a former philz employee, it was nice to see their flagship blend-the “Tesora” get kicked out early, but the silken splendor was one of my personal faves and easily the most popular light roast, probably in the top 3 most popular philz coffees in general out of the 15+ blends every store has. Nice work, I’ll have to pick myself up a bag of silken splendor and remind myself what all the fuss was about. It’s going to hurt to have to pay full price though 😅
water, silken, manhattan top 3 imo.
I guess they flagship tesora because it is blander and thus more agreeable?
@@blarghblargh the reasoning I always heard is that tesora was the closest blend to an espresso style taste, and they are thinking about Starbucks as competition. All the employees agreed on 3 things. 1. Tesora sucked. 2. Starbucks house blend sucked. 3. Tesora and the Starbucks house blend were indeed very similar… I think the idea was to get Starbucks enthusiast in the door with a familiar flavor in Tesora with our “Frappuccino” stand in, the “mojito,” and then get them curious about trying the other blends. In Philz’s defense, that goal has the double effect of making them money if it works, but also expanding the pallets of people who otherwise wouldn’t bother taking coffee more seriously
@@zwsh89 makes total sense once you explain it. philz' goal worked entirely in my case, and he basically got me to try light roasts, drink my coffee black, and prefer pour over.
@@blarghblargh nice, that actually makes me really happy to hear! Working at philz was a corporate cog-in-the-wheel type normal job, and sucked my soul out day by day, but unlike other barista jobs, and whether or not we converted people specifically into philz coffee drinkers or not, it always made me and my coworkers genuinely proud that what we were doing was actually helping people rediscover coffee, improving their quality of life, opening their pallets, and educating them on how to be in control of their coffee experience. Whether you came to philz for your pour over didn’t matter to me, but if you came to me and learned that you can like a pour over, and I can help you decide if you’re a light roast or dark roast kind of person, that really made my day. I now buy all my coffee from random sources, but I still use the tricks and techniques I learned there to maximize my coffee enjoyment, and I love that my former customers are empowered to do the same!
As an American and an East Coaster - I agree with your evaluation. My “poor man’s” coffee is Dunkin’. When we burn through the Anchorhead (local specialty) we fall back on Dunkin. The Starbucks you tasted is literally the only one that isn’t awful. If forced to get coffee at a Starbucks, I will get the Veranda Blonde as a pour over. Peet’s has really tanked. It used to be better than it is today.
Hard agree on the sbux. I worked there for a while and the Veranda was what I took home every single week as my free bag.
I had to stop drinking caffeinated coffee because of a heart issue.
I looked all over for a decaf coffee that tasted decent. I tried a lot of different brands.
To my surprise, it was the Dunkin Donuts decaf that tasted the best.
My husband drinks Dunkin decaf nearly every day. I hate coffee, I'm up too late and I rooted for Dunkin!
It sure ain't Community decaf xD Tastes like *nothing* lol
Thanks for this. I also drink decaf and am always looking for suggestions.
Me not knowing anything about coffees went and grabbed a bag of Dunkin amongst the wall of daunting choices the other day at the grocery store. Glad I went with a solid choice.
@@kristinb5121. Decaf suggestions. Pete’s coffee decaf French roast. Starbucks decaf Italian roast in the individual instant coffee packets (crazy but true).
Glad I watched this again. I've learned more since my last comment. What you have taught me is to find coffees I like better. My best friend has tastes that run acid and fruity.....no accounting for taste. In the meantime I succeeded in contributing to Patreon but have had technical difficulties there and with the discord....
I worked for peets coffee in one of their coffee bars for 4 years and they always said that peets is supposed to be known for their dark roast so I’m glad that still holds true with you and it wasn’t just some corporate big talk
Edit: just saw you comment asking if the coffee is that same in the shop and I can tell you it’s 10x fresher. We were delivered coffee weekly from the California roaster (I worked in Chicago) and the roast date we received was never more then 5 days old.
Peet's really does dark roasts well, I'd much rather have Major Dickason's blend than any dark roast from Starbucks
i have noticed peets have put roasting dates on their grocery store coffees dunno of that was always a thing or a more recent thing, but the extra level of tracability compared to everything else is nice to have
it's not really a good thing for a coffee to be only 5 days old, a coffee gets good at about 1-2 weeks since roast date
Of all the ones there Big Bang is the only one I've tried that I would say was very good.
@@nevadanate4957 There is no comparison. Starbucks dark roasts taste like someone made a mistake. Though I've heard people say that their "scorched" bean flavor is a trademark, I can't imagine why someone would want that.
His critiques are sensitive but at the same time so brutal it's hilarious. Love the personality 🎉
This guy has brought me from interested in coffee to full on coffee nerd and I love him to death for it
I would have loved to see a chart plotting each coffee by position and cost per 100g. With the exception of the Cafe du Monde, it seemed that higher price generally seemed to correspond with better coffee, would be interesting to see how strong that correlation is.
On a similar note, it would have been nice if the editors had retained the price/mass info under the package images during the later rounds so we could continue making easy comparisons.
Also their price on Hill Bros was way too high so that one should actually be within the trend.
Maybe relatedly, it seems that cafe brands did better. I imagine they probably have to trade on taste more since people make decisions about a cup of coffee more often than they do a bag/tub and are less price sensitive at a cafe vs in a store.
Fascinating comparisons! I did something similar when I was trying to find something I could easily drink black.
I settled on McCafé as my go-to black coffee. I quite enjoy it.
But you've given me a few more to (re)consider. Surprisingly, they're mostly the big drive-thru brands.
I'll also take a good look at Philz.
I'd love for this to be a regular thing! Especially for whole bean coffees you can buy in the grocery store.
And grocery "house" brands.
Agreed I drink mostly grocery coffee but whole bean and one of the more local fresher roasted ones. Tastes good to me especially compared with ground coffee as it’s often really burned or nasty tasting.
Very interesting and it's always impressive how fine tuned James' palate is.
One thing I would find interesting on this topic is how consistent a brand is with it's taste profile. I've always wondered how big brands keep the quality and taste consistent given the huge variability of sources of raw beans, or if they are actually consistent at all.
I was definitely impressed that he started recognizing the coffees on subsequent rounds - a good sign that he's actually identifying particular qualities and not just imagining tasting notes.
iirc the thing with comparative tasting is that it should be cosistent given the thing its put up agaisnt is consistent with itself
My tastes aren't as refined as his, but Gevalia brand always tastes stale & bad to me same for Maxwell House. So that is one consistency comparison.
from what i know, there are research teams for those companies to produce consistent flavours, which consist of different types of beans from same suppliers at specific ratios. it may change if there is a huge change to the plantations available to the company or they simply deploy newer blends with the same tag on the product.
either way, industrial production means quality control and minimize variability with mass production, if they can't manage to do that well, they have failed as a "fast food" coffee manufacturer.
I think it would have been fun to have a random specialty coffee thrown in to see if James could catch it
Philz was the speciality coffee.
out of 25+ coffees the only coffee that wasn't pre-ground came out on top, I feel like that shows something
@@iggywow Agree, you can't compare beans to pre-ground. Grinding releases the volatile terpenes that start to break down immediately.
In a sense, he did - the only whole bean coffee won.
@@EggEnjoyer Yes, the main terpenoids in coffee are kahweol and cafestol.
Awesome video, and fun to watch you work.
We have been drinking Peets for 35+ years (lived near the original in Berkeley) so we panicked momentarily when you tossed MD. Glad to see it squeeeeked by. Ordered some Dunkin to compare.
I like that one too. But i always put milk in it, so that lowers the bitterness. It can be a bit on the bitter side when it's black.
MD has always been my favorite too. At the end of the day, it all comes down to your own preference. A good coffee is the coffee that you enjoyed❤️
I love big bang
MD is genuinely one of the best dark roasts I've ever had. It's dark, but still complex in flavor/acidity which you don't find with other brands. I think part of it was just his knee jerk reaction to dark roasts as he was grading on sweetness.
@@brandonsteele2826 I add heavy whipping cream and a double pat of salted butter ! ! ! Delish ! ! !
This would be such a great mainstay on your channel as a recurring series as there are so many more people buying these coffees than care to admit it. Plus, as one of those people, I know firsthand that these coffees change by batch and season as time goes on as you implied with your mention of past experiences with Tim Horton coffee. I now buy specialty local coffee from Onda and Kuma of Seattle for myself, and grocery store (usually Dunkin or Peet's) for my family since they like creating creamy abominations with it anyway. I'd really love this to be a semi-annual series! Enough time between episodes for there to be a noticeable change in products and perhaps even a little taste bud rehabilitation 😎
I used to get Dunkin' sometimes but the last two times I bought it, it tasted like wood so I stopped. I really like some more expensive coffees I've tried but even ignoring the price, availability is a big issue. I just want a reliable coffee I can buy near me. I was getting Kivu Kona but it has bad batches too often as well
"creamy abominations" ?? Lol. I understand totally. Happily, there are two good micro roasters in my city in Northern California so it's easy to get freshly roasted coffee while supporting local companies. Have you tried Blue Bottle coffees? Their "Bella Donovan" is probably my favorite coffee of all time.
Interesting that you mention the variation - swear I once had a most excellent cup of Hills Bros medium roast, but I was never able to get anything like it in any other can :)
As a Peet’s Coffee fan, I was happy ( and proud of my personal choice of coffee) to see it made the Final Cut, even if by default ! Medium roast however is my go to !
Love Peet’s med also.
This guy seems like he only drinks elephant poop coffee, but just the poop part. Not a bad thing, just a vibe. Will continue to watch and enjoy this man.
As a Viet American who grew up drinking my dad's Cafe Du Monde that he makes every single day with a phin and some sweetened condensed milk, I found your immediately strong reaction to the chicory hilarious. This whole video was highly entertaining, and I was also very surprised by some of the results. I don't really buy grocery store coffee, but I did enjoy plenty of cups of Philz back when I lived in California. Please keep doing more of these, perhaps with brands from more parts of the world! (I now live in the Netherlands and would love your opinions on what can be found here 😁)
As a Filipino American I was looking for this comment…never in my life have I ever considered drinking it straight!! Even with the condensed milk and full cup of ice it would still kick my ass. 😅
Thank you for this comment, I couldn't take that Philz slander
Add swt cond milk to anything n it’ll be good lol
As a former barista at Sbux for 8 years, I went through extensive coffee education (which I don’t think they do so much anymore, having reduced their offerings dramatically since 2016). I found it interesting that you defined Veranda as a medium, when Sbux defines it as a light or “blonde” roast. This was the first time I’ve watched a video on this channel, and I really enjoyed watching you taste and provide your insights. That McCafe made it as far as it did was the one that shocked me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
He's really talking more in the grand scheme of things. It's a light roast relative to other Starbucks roasts, not to all the specialty coffee out there.
@@69nites I came here to say much the same. I quite like dark roast coffee but have a number of friends that describe the majority of SBC as tasting ‘burnt’ to them. So in that context the Veranda is very light. That said I can and have enjoyed a lot of SB coffee but don’t drink it at home or go out of my way to drink it. I’m a subscriber to Peet’s small batch delivery service as my daily but use their Major Dickason’s blend when I run out. I slightly prefer their Big Bang..a medium for them I think but I can’t find it whole bean in my area.
@@TripperJonMD I prefer dark roasts, but found Peet’s Luminosa very interesting.
If I see McCafe on sale I have no problem buying it. Its not the best but its not bad if its considerably cheaper.
Veranda is the only Starbuck's coffee I enjoy drinking. McCafe, when tried at their restaurant, is hit or miss. When prepared properly, it is totally acceptable. But most of the stores either add too much water, or keep it on the hot plate for one hour before served to you.
As a PhD student whose taste in coffee often runs beyond my budget: I have never clicked on a video so fast
Hi james, thank you for producing this video.
Would love to see a Decaf version. Cheers
Very morning I make a freshly ground pour over for me and a decaf for my spouse. I solely use Peet’s whole beans on line and alter the roasts from Peet’s too. BUT every time I make Peet’s Decaf House Blend, I am SHOCKED how great it tastes and it’s just as enjoyable as most of the caffeinated beans I make for me.
As a Canadian I can't believe how proud I am of tim Hortons coffee making it to the finals
As a Canadian, i'm actually sad that tim hortons made it this far. No problem about enjoying Timmies, i just think its overrated.
The fuck? Tim's has been trash for years.
I loved them growing up but a bit after RBI bought them I started having to skip some stores because it would just be filth water in my cup. That and doughnuts not being made in store anymore.
Now if it's not dark roast double double I can't even stomach it. I'm actively trying to give Tim's 0 dollars any given year.
I laughed every time he described it as 'friendly', definitely playing into the trope of friendly, polite Canadians. As for the fact that James didn't enjoy his previous Tim's coffee I can say that I agree. A good Tim's cup of coffee is very good and enjoyable, but not every Tim's cup is a good cup. For some reason the coffee lacks consistency, perhaps not every Tim's filter their water or something, producing a different taste depending which Tim's you buy it.
@@AnonymousMod. perhaps its the brewing method not necessarily the beans that’s faulty than
I have a feeling the ratios James used is way different from what the stores actually brew, since the store brews taste like water with a slight hint of mud.
As a Canadian I'm pleased that Tim Horton's performed comparatively well... also because that's one of the few brands featured here that we even can get in supermarkets here. A Canadian version of this would also have to include a few store brands like Irresistables, No Name, and President's Choice, and for non-store brands, Nabob, Kicking Horse, Melitta, Lavazza, Illy, Ethical Bean, Van Houtte, and Timothy's. I tend to prefer Kicking Horse's darker roasts, like Grizzly Claw or Kick Ass. President's Choice West Coast Dark Roast is, surprisingly, quite good for those who like darker roasts, and is definitely the cheapest decent option.
Didn't realize that either Van Houtte or Timothy's are Canadian brands. Definitely my favourites in the grocery store
As a person who grew up in Canada, No Name has always been the course of great mirth to me, I just think the packaging and concept is really funny.
Not Canadian but tim hortons is still my go to
Also I'm pretty sure the canadian McDonald's coffee is different from the USA's, I think a bag of Canadian McCafe would be an important inclusion too.
Nabob is my personal favorite. Although at times my local timmies has got it down
I find it interesting and a bit funny that his three choices for medium roast coffees were all major chain coffees. His choices for light and dark were both more unique, lesser known brands, but the medium were all things you could grab a cup of on your way to work. :D
I don't think Peet's is particularly underground, at least from my experience it's one of the most popular coffee brands out there and has a lot of shelf space in grocery stores
@@LLsunflower It's not exactly up there at the well known brand name level as Starbucks, Tim Hortons, and Dunkin' Donuts, though, is it? Your not gonna find a "Peet's" chain store all over the place. As a non-coffee drinker, I'm not exactly the authority on well known brands, but those three are well known even outside the realm of coffee connoisseurs.
@MysticJhn Maybe not on tier with those, but I'd put it just below them in terms of how prolific Peet's is in grocery stores. And while they don't have a massive number of locations, they have a pretty decent spread of shops as a franchise.
What's interesting to me is that I'm not super familiar with Caribou as a brand, but I've been buying them as my go to grocery store brand very recently (for no particular reason), and there's a pretty decent amount on grocery store shelves in stores near me in Denver.
@@LilBoyHexley Caribou used to be quite heavily present at least in the midwest as early as about 15 years ago or so, it was basically what we had instead of Starbucks at least going by my memories as a kid. Starbucks took over all the old Caribou locations in my old neighborhood as the years went by.
@@MysticJhn Most of Peet's stores are in California, there's more Peet's than Dunkin in california
Coffee and chicory black is my favorite, so you're reaction to my beloved cafe du monde was hilarious to see haha love the video.
Watching James suffer through tasting my go to grocery store coffees was an absolute treat. He tasted all the brands I used to buy before switching to locally roasted coffees and didn't have much good to say about them. 😂 Of course, I take my coffee with cream and like darker roasts....and maybe I would feel the same as him about them now that I've been drinking locally roasted coffee for a couple of years now.
I got a bag of 8 O'Clock for the first time in a while recently. It was undrinkable. I don't think I'm that picky about coffee, but I guess my tastes have evolved.