Best Costco coffee beans; compare to top-tier coffees and to Starbucks

 Even at Costco, you get what you pay for: 3 lbs of Columbian coffee beans is only $14. That is an insanely good price, and it's the only medium roast coffee they have (all the others are dark roasts--doesn't Costco know that dark roast means "burned" and the best, most-delicate flavors come from a light or medium roast?).

It is a pretty good coffee (I have no problem drinking it), but if you pay up for the "top tier" of the world's best beans, you will really notice the difference.

1. Costco Columbian: 3 lbs = 192 tablespoons, or 96-to-180 cups (depending on how strong you like it). Let's call it 140 cups of coffee, which is $14/140 = $0.10 per cup! This is FAR better coffee than the regular coffee at Starbucks, and you save $5 or so every time you make your own. If you hit SBUX 4 times a week, you'd save $1040 a year plus gas saved, if you make your own. Do that for 10 years and you've saved $11,000 plus gas saved, AND you've drunk far better coffee. Re flavor: The packaging says it's citrusy, but uh, no; it's chocolately and slightly nutty.

2. Top Tier coffees: Check out the Guatemala Antigua at Volcanica in Atlanta--they ship and it is fantastic. $20 per pound. Locally (Portland OR metro area), check out Trailhead's Guatemala beans, or in Stephenson WA try Bigfoot Coffee's beans. Woodland's Luckman Coffee is worth a stop and their beans are the best-priced for high-quality (they roast there): Try the Mexican, the Guatemalan, or the Columbian, which are about $15/lb.

$20/lb coffee makes 40-50 cups, or $0.50 per cup. so you'd still save $4.50 per cup over Starbucks, which adds up to about $9990 saved over 10 years (plus gas saved), AND you've been drinking the best coffee in the world.

Coffee is one of those things where it really pays to drink good stuff that you make yourself. And if you just imagine all the SBUX stores in the world, where a line of 4 or 5 cars sits idling almost all day long, and if you calculate the gasoline wasted and the air pollution created, and the health impacts of all that pollution, and the impact on climate change, and not to mention all the hours wasted by the cars' occupants, it'll make you shudder. If you must go to SBUX, pleast at least shut off your car and walk inside.

PS-A great way to make coffee is: grind whole beans (but not until the water is hot) in a good burr grinder (which makes evenly-shaped pieces), then put almost-boiling water and the ground coffee in a French press for 4 minutes, and wow! Store your whole beans in the freezer until it's time to use them; it's fine to keep the beans, once you've opened the bag, in an airtight container on the counter, out of the sun or heat. I use 2 Tablespoons of beans per 16 oz cup of coffee (1 caf and 1 decaf), but others use more beans. And the healthiest decaf beans use the Swiss Water Process--don't buy beans that use chemical solvents to remove the caffeine.

https://volcanicacoffee.com/products/guatemala-antigua-coffee






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